Portland
by quondam
Summary: Before Emma met Neal and his promise of Tallahassee, she had Portland. The unlikely and improbable story of the man she knew first and his inability to ever get anything right.
1. Chapter 1

_So I started this right after Tallahassee aired and always chickened out of posting it anywhere and committing to finishing what I started. This, hopefully, marks my decision to stand by it. Thanks to the small corner of the OUAT fandom that favors these two together, from which I've pulled together many ideas/theories for this story. _

* * *

Portland, he believed, could be a nice place to live. If one were inclined to settle down, own a piece of property, carve out a permanent existence and start a family, August thought that maybe Portland would be the place he would do it. Metropolitan enough, but without the kind of vast loneliness that came with cities like New York. Mild weather, neighborhoods on the outskirts that almost seemed as if they were plucked out of small town America, and the people as a whole: kind.

But _fuck_ that rain.

A week earlier he'd rolled into town and it had rained for nearly all the days he'd been hitting the pavement across the city. A morning shower, an afternoon drizzle, a late night downpour. _Unusually wet this year_, he'd heard the locals comment, and though August didn't have a particular aversion to rain—in fact, if he was honest, he kind of liked the cleansing aspect that came with it—it just didn't lend to very good weather for the only means of travel he had.

Man. Fuck that rain.

August tugged the collar on his jacket up, an absentminded action to shield the back of his neck from the downpour as he darted underneath the overhangs of the storefront lined street. It was, however, a motion that proved rather fruitless as the heavy drops left his shoulders and sleeves wet, so sodden with rainwater that he could feel the dampness as it soaked into his shirt below. An umbrella, he'd have to finally invest in one of those, though August had the sneaking suspicion that the moment he laid out the cash for such an item, the rain clouds would mysteriously disappear, soon leaving Portland in an unprecedented drought simply out of spite. For him, that was usually how most things worked.

A couple wrapped up in each other exited his intended destination and August grunted his thanks as he shouldered the heavy weight of the half open door, slipping inside for himself. The humidity of the bar was only trumped by the mustiness, the kind of scent that came out of the old floorboards and walls from an extended dampness, but it was a familiar smell to him, of watering holes and dive bars across the country, places that had become his home when nowhere else fit the bill.

He passed by the other patrons, and though it was crowded for a Wednesday night, he paid it no mind; there'd been enough sweatshirts with identical block lettering to tell him that he'd wandered into a college bar. He'd never been—hadn't had the money, the grades, the determination, the parents, the… _anything_ that he would've needed to get that nudge in the right direction—but there was one thing he knew about college bars: the drinks tended to be cheap.

At the bar, a girl spun away from the counter with drink in hand and a bag slung over her shoulder in the same moment that August approached. In another life she would have barged right into him, spilling her drink across the both of them in the process, her bag and its contents tossed across the floor. They both would have grumbled half-apologetically but mostly irritated, her for the half a beer she was now missing, him for already smelling like a bar without anything to drink in him yet. Maybe, though, maybe as they crouched down to politely gather her things he would have passed her a wallet, fingers brushing one another's, eyes meeting in the dimness of the room. And if they were lucky, they both would have smiled, washing away the unpleasant thoughts of before.

The girl caught herself, however, and August turned sideways with quick enough reflexes, narrowly missing the collision that had once threatened them both. All he saw was a mess of blonde hair ducking her head without more than a mumbled '_Sorry'_ before she was out of his way and disappearing amongst the rest of the patrons. August watched her go, more fixated on the heavy weight of the bag she carried than anything else. It reminded him of himself, the type of person carrying their few worldly possession's along with them, always ready to make home wherever it was for the night… not that he often found it. She was gone though, and the thirstiness in his mouth and head drew him back towards the bar. He waved the bartender down with a couple of bills, eager to put the days behind him.

He tapped the toe of his boot against the lower wall of the bar's counter as his shot was poured, counting down the seconds until the alcohol was burning all the way down his throat and into his stomach. The beer washed away the sting but he was reluctant to have it go, that kind of sensation had become a regularity over the years, a constant always to be called on when he needed a reminder that, of all things, he was _alive._ To his left and right he could hear the conversations of those around him, incessant and loud when all he wanted to do was drown in silence or someone else. August set his foot back down on the floor and pivoted where he was, elbow back on the bar behind him as he raised the cup to his lips, but down below, the sole of his boot slid on a sudden slickness on the floor. He repeated the motion, testing the irregularity for a sudden slip of the mind. The slickness was present again.

Half-stepping in the confined space allotted to him between the people occupying the bar space, August glanced down to the darkness, nudging the front of his shoe against the floor to push up the offending object. He squinted in the lack of light and crouched down towards the small piece of plastic, flipping it over as he stood back up. _Huh_. A girl's face stared back at him, blonde hair, pale, serious. The tight line of her lips and the line between her brows: they nearly made him laugh.

Diane Anderson. Resident of California state. Born January 10th, 1979. And, he looked over bottom of the card when an ounce of curiosity struck him, _not_ an organ donor.

August glanced around in the immediate vicinity for the card's owner, then even turned back towards the bartender. She was further down the countertop serving other customers, and without a few more dollars to wave in his hand, August was reduced down to persona non grata in the bartender's eyes. He sighed, took a sip from his glass, and peeked down again at the picture. That was right—he actually knew _two_ things about college bars. The drinks were cheap and the girls were beautiful. Pushing off from the edge of the counter, he made his way back into the crowd, ID in hand, and began the hunt for the face that matched the photograph.

"Diane?" August said, casually interrupting the conversation of a couple women he passed, moving on when recognition failed to dawn across their features. "Any of you know a Diane Anderson? No? …_Great_."

He sighed in frustration, wiping a hand across his brow while he took a drink. Through a window formed between other bodies, August caught a glimpse of long blonde hair. _Jackpot_.

August found her at the far end of the bar, occupying a booth on her own. It was a coveted spot, one she'd been lucky to grab at all, much less keep to herself with the larger roving groups that ambled about looking for a place to park themselves. With hardly a glance up, she turned one such crowd away quickly and abruptly before they could make a second protest. He had to admit, he was impressed.

It, of course, also set him up to be just as easily brushed aside, and before he'd even leaned his elbow against the top of the seat across from her own, he was hearing the voice from the girl that had nearly mowed him down back at the bar ten minutes prior, only this time she wasn't meek and apologetic, but stern.

"It's taken."

August didn't budge, instead sipped from his glass again as he remained steady, fighting away the coy smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Diane Anderson. Never expected to see you here."

Her head jerked upwards towards him at that, eyes narrowing behind the thick frames and lenses of her glasses. An expression of startled shock, and a hint of something else—was that confusion? bewilderment?—read across her face.

"You know," he tilted his head and played his card outright, lifting her driver's license before him to take a deliberate, almost dramatic, inspection of her picture and details across the front of it. "Doesn't say anything about corrective lenses on here. I like them though, they suit you."

She reached for her bag, shuffling through the outermost pocket for her wallet and then opened it to presumably look for the missing piece of identification. There was a stiff sigh and her eyes raising to him in a kind of submission, the sign when August knew she'd realized what was missing. That tough exterior though, it didn't fade away, and where a second before she'd looked ready to downright beg for her ID back, she pursed her lips and offered an open hand.

"Going to be a jerk about it or just give it back?"

August raised a brow at the combative tone and opted for a sign of good faith in handing the card off. "You could," he shrugged a shoulder, "say thank you, although it seems like that might actually cause you physical pain. Wouldn't want that to happen."

Diane slid the card away along with the wallet, shutting her bag up tight before even regarding him again. "Thank you."

"I hardly believed it—but," he tipped his head, raised his cup, and smiled, "you're welcome. So—California, huh? What brings you to Portland?"

"What brings _you_ to Portland?"

"Who's to say I don't live here?"

"Mmm," she hummed as she took a drink, buying herself some time. "I'm good at telling when someone's lying, and even if I weren't, you're a damn bad liar. Anyone ever told you that?"

August coughed, stifled something of a laugh though the lightheartedness he felt previously was temporarily washed away, weighed down with a sudden heaviness. He blinked it off, steeling himself against her innocent remarks. "Once or twice." There was a pause of silence, an awkwardness that almost had his feet moving again, but just as he was about to push off and leave, Diane chimed in, volunteering and sticking her neck out for the first time where she'd otherwise kept to herself.

"I always heard Portland was nice—thought I'd see for myself."

"That's what everyone says."

"So what about you? You don't seem like the type to be here for the scenery."

"No, I—" he motioned to the empty seat, "mind if I sit down?" But didn't wait for an answer, instead slipping in halfway through his own words. "Came to look for an old friend," he said, and it wasn't a lie, not really, just a stretch of the truth.

"Found them?"

"Not yet," he paused, a far away glance given beyond her for a breath before he came back to the present, "but I think I'm close."

"Well, good luck with it," she said, elbows slipping from the tabletop, a sign she was withdrawing unto herself if August ever did see one. He didn't miss the social cues, he knew she was a second away from telling him to get on moving, but still he remained, ever the one to push boundaries when he could.

"If you don't mind me saying," he motioned his glass in the direction of her bag perched in the space beside her, "you seem to be carrying around a lot for someone just grabbing a drink in a bar."

"And you seem to be way too nosy for someone who wasn't even invited to sit down," Diane bit back.

"Fair enough," he offered a solitary hand raised as a concession. "You've just got that look."

She lifted a brow, curious, and just as he'd hoped, it gave Diane another reason to continue their conversation. "What look?"

"Like someone who's used to carrying their world with them wherever they go."

Despite the volume of the rest of the bar, there was silence between them, a long stretch of quiet in which August wasn't quite sure if she was going to deck him or give him a piece of her mind. Both, he decided. She'd probably do both.

"I just mean," he spoke up, intervening before she armed her fist or formed the beginning of the dressing down she was planning for him. "I know that look because it's _my_ look, too."

He'd been wrong about the cheap drinks, he thought, as the words left his mouth. They had to be something powerful to leave him spouting the kind of bullshit that found him tonight. Bars were for chit-chat and quick conversation, not saying too much, and wanting to hear even less from the other person. Too much talk always led to reconsideration and going home alone. Too much talk meant facing reality head on, something he'd never been good with, and talking with strangers in bars about tough life lessons and absent parents wasn't exactly the best come on.

"I'm not drunk enough for this conversation," Diane said with a deep exhale.

With the corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, he asked, "you want me to get you drunk? We're in a bar, you know. We can fix that."

She returned his subdued smile, but logic won out in her words. "I don't even know your _name_."

Rather than answer, August shifted his weight in his seat, struggling to pull his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. It had seen better days, the spine half torn, the leather scuffed and scratched, and half its weight made from scraps of mementos like movie tickets, phone numbers he never called, and notes he'd made over the last few years on the trail to find Emma. Though his attention was on his hands, from the corner of his eye he caught the way she sat up, leaning forward slightly as though to get a better view of what information could be gleaned from something so personal as someone's wallet. August slid his ID out and then held it before her in the middle of the table.

"Booth, August W.," she read aloud. "You're a long way from Kansas, did you get lost? Leave Dorothy behind somewhere along the yellow brick road out of there?" Diane quipped, but her question was lost as another came to mind. "What's the W stand for?"

"You let me buy you another drink," he said, putting the license back where it belonged, "and not only will I tell you my middle name, I'll let you make all the Wizard of Oz jokes you want. Fair deal, if I say so myself."

"You _would_," Diane rolled her eyes, but as she ran the bottom edge of the nearly empty glass in slow circles along the table, a little of her resolve faltered. She nudged the cup towards him. "Beats drinking alone, especially if you're paying. Hey—" she called as he stood to leave, already a few paces off. "You don't even know what I want."

"I'll surprise you, and by the way—the W's for Wayne."

—

He didn't know how it happened, when the tides had turned, or the exact moment Diane had stopped looking at him like a stranger and instead like well, still a stranger, but one she no longer needed a table's width distance from. It was after, definitely _after_ he'd started to wonder what the red buttons down the front of that floral printed dress would feel like under his finger tips, but somewhere before she'd brushed the side of her boot across his ankle and against his calf. But to be fair—August didn't very much care when it had happened, just that it had happened _at all._

The bartender had shouted for last call and with somewhat unsure footing, it had been Diane pulling him from the back of the bar, their empty glasses left behind. August, he'd followed her like a lost little boy drunk on his first taste of liquor, and when they'd made it outside and been greeted by the cool air, Diane had leaned in close, pressed her mouth to his without the kind of pretenses most girls needed to take what they wanted. He'd stumbled, almost shamefully caught off guard, into the brick of the wall behind him, and it had been clumsy the way he'd pulled her with him. She'd just laughed as their mouths separated, the kind of wildness and confidence to her that had grown the more she'd imbibed, and then again found him with another kiss—this one he'd been prepared for.

She teased him in the way their stomachs and hips met, the way her thigh pressed outward against his hand as it dropped down, skimming the bare flesh where the end of her dress met skin. Despite the temperature of the night air, August felt warm as her body draped itself against his, and it was more than just the heat of her cheeks radiating against his own or the steam of her breath. It was the warmth found in the way her fingers curled into the hair at the back of his head and the thigh she ran between his own legs, the uppermost portion pressing tight at the seam of his jeans. August groaned against her mouth accordingly.

"Not that I don't like where this is going," he said between gulps of air, "but we're a minute away from public indecency charges." For emphasis, his fingers traveled up the length of her outer thigh, pushing the hem of her dress with it a few inches. "You got a place we can go?"

At the question, Diane quickly shook her head and instead kissed him again. "How about yours?"

"Suddenly not afraid I'm going to murder you?"

"Quit," she laced their fingers together and pulled back, encouraging him with her, "while you're ahead, Kansas."

And because August had always needed a voice to guide him on his way, he listened and led her by the hand.

—

They'd walked much of the distance back to his motel without a word, but as the light above the door numbered _2_ flickered above them while August fished the room key from his pocket, Diane acted with renewed vigor. She kissed his jaw, her mouth tickling against the stubble that had grown in over the course of the day's time, even nipped on the lobe of his ear—an act that had nearly made him drop the key just before he'd slid it home into the lock. August curled one arm around her, meeting her unfair actions with a gentle sucking at the curve of her neck, and with the other hand turned the handle to open the hotel room door, let them both inside.

Diane dropped the bag she'd been carrying just as the door clicked shut behind them both, shrugging and working off the denim jacket with the same eagerness that August removed his own coat of a darker wash. They were close but still separated, no more than two feet of space between them though they worked in tandem, minds inexplicably linked where no such thing ever should have existed. Diane went for her left boot and August toed off his shoe. She went for the right and he did just the same, mirroring her actions while their eyes otherwise kept contact.

At his waist, August roughly unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, but when he made move for the bottom of his shirt, fingers pulling at the frayed edge of the hem, Diane caught his hands with her own.

"I've got it," she responded with a nod of her head, and it took no coaxing for August to give in once the goosebumps had spread from where her fingers grazed his abdomen.

In the blink of an eye, or so it had felt to him, she'd pulled his shirt up and over his head and then tossed it blindly to her side, somewhere in the vague direction of the solitary chair the room held in addition to the single bed. When her hands moved to the topmost button of her dress, August proceeded just as she had except wordlessly, brushing her hands away to replace them with his. By all things holy, he was going to finally learn what those buttons felt like under the pads of his fingers.

He returned to that previous spot of her neck he'd visited before as he began the slow, meticulous process of undressing her, working downward as more real estate became available. Her upper chest was exposed, the place that covered her heart and lungs, and August dragged sloppy, lazy kisses across breadth of her ribcage. The further his hands worked the more of her he earned, especially when Diane joined in the process, slipping the fabric down her shoulders so he needn't unfasten each and every one of the pesky little buttons, since the lower ones were mostly unnecessary when it came to divesting her of her clothes.

The dress fell away with gravity as its only aid after that, the thin, silky fabric pooling around her ankles. August was lost in the sight of her, even if the room was dim and dreary at best. It had been months. Months since he'd undressed another person where for most of the years prior he'd spent his time getting lost in the feel of another, invigorated by that temporary feeling of being lost and at home at the same time inside of a stranger. There were spots of tiny dark moles flush with her skin that spotted her sparingly all over, small brown dots he wanted to learn and map out and memorize the routes in between, but the delicate fabric of Diane's underthings caught him first and there was no coming back from that.

August ran his fingers over from her shoulders on south, down over the thin straps to the small cups of her bra. There was nothing particularly intricate or fancy about it, by all means it was as plain as one could get without lace or a useless microscopic little bow sewn at the center—but the lack of such things didn't make his interest any less, and that missing decorative bow didn't mean August didn't look at her like she was anything less than a present all dressed up, just waiting to be unwrapped like a child looked to presents under the tree on Christmas morning. He'd never had many of those when he was a kid, hell he hadn't even understood what Christmas was the first few years he'd been in this world, and for that reason and more, August sought to makeup for lost time.

His mouth dropped to her chest, sucking and kissing on a collarbone as one of Diane's hands wrapped around him, palming the back of his scalp and pushing through his hair, inspiring him on. She made the softest little sounds that lit him anew, and he ventured forth, kissing the top swell of her breast. At her back, the width of his hands found the curve of her spine, even the roundness of her bottom, squeezing and pulling her body back into his as though enough pressure would allow the two of them to join together permanently. Fingers slid up to the clasp of her bra and with only a small struggle, August deftly pushed together the two ends until the tension released, going slack around her ribcage though still just barely covering her. He lifted his head, standing back to his full height in front of her, and the hand at her bra came around, this time cupping the sharp line of her jaw and full cheek.

"You've been drinking," he said, but didn't elaborate. It wasn't an out he'd ever really given before, instead choosing to walk the line of morally corrupt in exchange for his own pleasure, but there was a pang in his chest as he looked at her that made him hesitate like never before.

"So have you," Diane responded, a little quieter and unsure of herself than she'd been all night, but then she blinked, tightened her jaw, and lifted her head ever so slightly, and where that question of uncertainty had been before, she replaced it with something else. "Just shut up, August." With that, she made her choice just as she'd done at the bar the hour before when their mouths had touched the first time or when she'd taken his hand and let him pull her on his way towards the hotel room they now shared.

Her hands moved to his waist, and as an emphasis of her determination, Diane roughly wrenched with the belt buckle at the front of his jeans, a simple, oval flat piece of metal. In her hands, the buckle came apart, the softest of _pops_ as the spot of shoddy welding that secured the metal loop to the back ripped from where it had been fastened.

"Sorry—" she mumbled, but didn't let it stop her on her way, "I'll get you a new one."

Whether she would or wouldn't wasn't really the important part in all of it; it was a cheap little thing he'd picked up years back. Maybe there was some sentimental attachment to it, but nothing that couldn't be replaced or emotions simply transferred to another little knick knack he carried with him wherever he went. What did matter, however, at least in that moment, was the way she continued, each half of the belt limply hanging in the loops of his jeans while she unbuttoned and unzipped down the front, driving the two of them forward.

They slowed only long enough for August to drop to a knee, both hands slipping in to the sides of her underwear as he did so, pushing the fabric down along with him. He didn't dare look at what part of her was finally revealed, and rather than simply returning to his feet to pick up where they'd left off—and the ache in his groin was begging him to—he dipped his head in, kissing from her knee on up her thigh. Against him, he felt her body give a quake, swaying unsteadily on bare feet. He shut his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the temporary calm he found in her, but then there was the softest of thumps, even the subtlest brush of air against his skin, and when August opened his eyes again it was to find the bra she'd once been limply holding to her chest now on the floor.

August took a deep breath before looking up… and then immediately took her to bed.

—

"What do you do?" Diane asked from beside him in the dark of the room. There was space between them, all of only a few inches, but down beneath the blanket of sheets and bedspread, one of her feet rubbed soothingly, repeatedly, and slowly, along his ankle and calf just as she'd done underneath that table in the bar.

Though August's eyes may have been shut, he wasn't asleep, not even treading on the verge of it. Instead he focused on steadying breaths, chest rising and falling, even the feel of sweat on his skin—particularly in the creases of his joints. "Huh?"

"For a living."

They may have spent the night talking, but even after the intimate mention of that _look_ she wore, the two of them hadn't exactly strayed back to talk of the personal. It had been fun, it had been easy, and since they'd met back here, there hadn't been much talking at all save for the few moans they'd breath against one another's skin in the heat of things.

August opened his eyes and tilted his head on his pillow, looking back to her. He blinked rapidly, adjusting to the low lighting, just barely making out the details of her face.

"I…" He stopped, feigning a catch in his throat as he coughed into the back of a hand, then dropped his palm to his bare chest. "Whatever I can find, usually."

Diane's expression dropped slightly at how little information he offered, but August caught it quick enough.

"You ever seen any of those sailboats in harbors? The kind so big you wonder how someone could afford one?"

She perked up as he spoke, but nodded, smiling. "Yeah."

"I worked on a few for awhile."

"Where the hell did you learn how to sail in a land-locked state?"

"Good question," he said, forcing through some laughter that mostly got swallowed in the back of his throat. "It's not where I grew up—I moved around a lot as a kid…" August squinted in the dark, studying her face. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, there wouldn't be something there he hadn't caught earlier, wouldn't be anything new to give him comfort. He found it though, nonetheless, when she outstretched a hand and curled her palm over his upper arm, thumb rubbing into the skin she found there. Whether she'd done it on purpose, an act of kindness he needed, or not, August didn't really care. Consider it a sign. "I grew up in the foster system," he confessed, "but before my father and I—" August swallowed, looked away from her and back up towards the ceiling, "before we got _separated_, he taught me to sail. So when I got older… it just seemed like the right thing to do."

Beside him, Diane was still, save for the thumb that hadn't faltered in drawing its slow concentric circles.

"Never really paid well, if anything. But I got a place to stay, got fed, worked with my hands all day, and got to step away from the world for awhile. At the time, that was what I was looking for."

"Yeah," she breathed, "I know what you mean."

"Do you?"

There was a shallow nod from her, but she didn't elaborate on the subject. "And now? You said you used to—what do you do now?"

"Off the books construction, carpentry. Moving companies, sometimes. Washing dishes. Nothing glamorous," he cocked his head back towards her, and though he smiled it was forced and insecure, "sorry to disappoint you."

She shook her head, her hand leaving his arm to allow her finger tips to brush over the square of his jaw and the sandpaper grit of stubble he wore. "Not like I've really got my life together right now."

As a general rule, August had never been one for blondes. Sure, they came and went here and there, but he'd always much preferred the deep, warm tones of chestnut browns, even the fiery spark that came with redheads. But as he glanced back to her, raising his hand to gently push his fingers through the tangled, wavy locks of her golden hair, August couldn't see or imagine anything else splayed across the pillow next to him, which was a silly thought in itself. Repeated encounters with the same woman were more rare than not, and August would be lying if he said more than just tolerated the routine of the _afterward_. Tonight, though, he was clinging to her, in a metaphorical sense if not a physical, and dreading the moment she got up to go.

"What about you?" He posed the question back on her and it caused Diane's eyes to leave his own, a heavy sigh breathed out in the otherwise quiet room. She opted to kiss the inside of his wrist—the one lost in her hair—instead.

"Getting by," she confided and kissed the soft skin again. "Did you ever look for your father? Or did you know—did you know what happened to him?"

No one asked about his father. No one. Growing up, every kid had their own sad story, never interested in getting to know someone else's, and as for the adults, he'd learned early on that talk of the past was never what they wanted to hear. Moving forward, that's what they wanted. Moving on and forgetting. August had tried it once or twice, or really, most of his life. That was how he was here to begin with, searching Portland hopelessly for the ghost of a girl he should've taken care of for the last seventeen years. He couldn't just forget, no matter how hard he tried.

"Sorry," Diane whispered, "if it's not something I should've asked—"

"I knew where he was," August finally spoke, "that might've been the worst part of all of it. Knowing he was there but that I couldn't be with him."

"No," she said abruptly, "that's not the worst part."

His brow furrowed at her tone, head even lifting from the pillow slightly to consider her more seriously.

"Not knowing—dead or alive. Not knowing would be worse."

Sadness shone in her eyes, and he could've sworn maybe even tears growing thick and heavy, but then her hands were wiping at the corners, holding back and pushing away anything that could've shown at all. He wanted to ask, wanted to know why she was so curious to know about the life he'd had, why the uncertainty of it all left her chest rising and falling with uneven breaths, wanted to know what had happened between the day she'd been born and the hour before now when he'd gotten to know her intimately to lead her right here. But August didn't ask, didn't pry, didn't even just let the silence expand between them indefinitely with the hope that she would fill it with words. He curled in close, rolled onto his side and against her, pressing an open palm to her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her. She tasted like him.

The night's chill air was no longer painful while she looped an arm around the back of his neck to keep him close, bare chest pressing to bare chest. She was impossibly soft in contrast to the rest of the world, from the rough scrap of sheet partially caught between them, to the last few months, hell—even years—piled up all together on him. It wasn't just her skin either, it was her hair, each heated breath flaring from her nostrils, the needy sound in the back of her throat that he echoed much deeper. Diane pulled back, only just, and August let his face drop down to the curve of her neck where she smelled of sweat and perfume.

"Should I go?" She whispered, voice suddenly low compared to before.

For perhaps the first time in his life, August hummed his denial against her skin. "No."

"You'll probably have a different opinion in the morning."

"Then I'll worry about it tomorrow," he replied before he'd had even a moment to second guess and change his mind. Though his body desperately longed to feel her warmth through the night, a source of constant heat and a reminder of his very existence, August reluctantly pulled back from her, once again creating that divide of empty space between their bodies. Beneath the blankets he could still feel the barely there sensation of her body temperature radiating off of her skin, and for the night that would have to be enough.

He chanced one last glance back to her, their eyes meeting even in the darkness. Hers were wide and open, awake despite the hour and the exhaustion she should have felt just as strongly as he currently did. Her gaze was unwavering and in it he felt both comfort and fear, as though all the sayings he'd heard in this world were true—the eyes were the window to one's soul. And August, frankly, although he was just as human as everyone else here, he wasn't exactly sure if boys that were carved once upon a time came with things called souls. Maybe that was something the Blue Fairy hadn't been able to give him and maybe that was why he'd never felt entirely right on his own… or more than likely it was just another excuse August sought out to explain away his mistakes.

Suddenly, he dropped his eyes from hers, and in the same move rolled over, giving his back to her as he laid on his other side. The blankets curled around him and he could no longer feel the heat of her body with enough distance between them, only the tug of sheets as she, too, settled in for sleep.

From somewhere behind him, Diane whispered. "Goodnight."


	2. Chapter 2

_Just wanted to give a quick thanks for the comments! Here's the next part._

* * *

From the nightstand, the clock read 6:48 AM.

The mattress shifted and August raised his head, glancing over his shoulder at the stranger that hadn't yet had the decency to leave. She gathered her clothes as she went and just before slipping away into the bathroom, he caught sight of the floral pattern of the fabric of her dress, his forefinger rubbing unconsciously against his thumb as though he could feel the tiny buttons under his fingertips. That was right, he now vaguely recalled, he'd asked this one to stay. August put his head back down and returned to sleep.

The shower started and he blinked awake again. 6:54.

His head jerked as the bathroom door opened with a loud smack, stuck in the frame from the humidity. _Diane_—that was her name, he knew with a sleepy confidence—crossed the room in a towel, kneeling as she dug into the bag she'd carried with her the night before. From behind half-lidded eyes he watched the sodden hair as it stuck to her back and along the notches he could glimpse of her spine where the towel drooped too low. 7:08.

The alarm sounded. The room was quiet. August woke alone. 8:15.

—

A year ago, he would like to say, he'd have found Emma a year ago if he hadn't had to split his time between tracking down one lead after another with finding work. But traveling meant he needed money, fundamentally _more_ of it, and sometimes the work was too steady to turn down and not wait for a job to run dry. There were easier and less honest ways of earning a living if he had the right connections, things he'd done in the past like sell dope to college kids with too much cash, but out in the unknown he had no one but himself. Things had turned decidedly more complicated when August had found out that Emma had left her foster home to give it a go alone, and this time, he knew, if he didn't find her in Portland before she moved on… he wasn't ever going to find Emma at all.

Still, that didn't mean he had any less of a desire to eat or drink or sleep in a bed—even if it was in the questionable kind of motels that rented by the week and whose advertised amenities included an in-room phone and color TV—and so August rose from his bed and hit the shower to start the day. A damp towel lay neatly folded over the plastic towel rack and August ran his fingers over it, a physical reminder of the ghost of a stranger that had spent the night. Truth be told, he hadn't expected her to be gone come morning light, not that he'd known what he would have said to her if she had stayed, and he could only imagine the rented room's walls filled once again with her soft, regular exhales.

A rattling and subsequent slam of a door from the next room over forced him from his thoughts. August reached into the shower and turned it on.

—

Hauling boxes wasn't hard work, but it was back breaking. It wasn't the kind of soreness that came the day after a particularly grueling work out, instead it was the ache one felt immediately, growing and radiating outward from the spine though the the true severity didn't exactly settle in until one laid down to sleep. Still hours away from hitting the pillow, August could feel that surge of pleasure and pain as he imagined himself draped across the bed in the night to come, rubbing the heel of his palm into the small of his back, the other hand lingering by his lips as he took a drag off what was already half of a cigarette.

God, that felt good.

Looking out and upwards past the low-rising buildings, the sky was already losing its once vibrant blue color, darkening into navy. He longed for the days of summer when the sun hung overhead until long past supper; those had been his best days, both in this world and in the other. If he tried hard enough, August could almost even smell the forest that had once been his home: the dewey wetness in early mornings when he trekked with his father to market to sell the smaller trinkets they'd crafted; the smokiness of a night fire burning to fight off the chill that came even in warm weather when the trio—that he, his father, and Jiminy made—spent a night living off the land; the distinct fragrance of a final coat of varnish left to dry all night long in the workshop. August shut his eyes as he leaned up against the chain link fence and for just a minute let himself return to happier times.

The cigarette burning close to his fingers woke him from his reverie, dropping the butt to the sidewalk and then grinding the paper with his toe to extinguish the once brightly burned embers.

"Here's your take," a man named Michael—Mike—said and offered up the small wad of folded bills.

August nodded his thanks, thumbing over the edge of cash to attempt a rough and quick count of what he was owed, and then raised the money as an acknowledgement that all was in order. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah," the man, who in the last two weeks had only become barely less than a stranger to August, said with a grunt. "Got a cousin who does roofing—might need a couple guys next week for a big job. Know anything about it?"

"Roofing?" August asked with a raised brow while tucking his day's pay into his back pocket. "Yeah, of course," he lied, avoiding the other man's eyes as he stood up straight, searching the front pocket of his jeans for his keys. "Tell him if he needs someone, I'm his guy."

"Got it. See you in the morning, Booth."

August waved as the man went, then circled back into the small lot beside the building to find his bike waiting where he'd left it that morning. He straddled the engine and breathed a sigh, deflating. _Roofing_: shingles, tar, nails. That was about all that he knew when it came to the subject, but he'd faked it through worse and survived. At least he wasn't afraid of heights, even if falling from thirty feet meant certain death rather than just a new hinge on a damaged wooden knee.

The night was mercifully dry, a rarity that tempted him into taking the long route back to the place that, for the time being, subbed as his home. The wind on his face took him out of Portland, reminded him of the days of open road, truck stops, and all the maps folded and stowed away in the bike's inner compartment, both back before he'd got it into his head to find the girl he'd left behind _and_ just after he'd set out to find her, however small the chances were. He'd always longed for a real home, some place to come back to, and yet in his fingers and in his legs he always felt that itch—an itch to keep moving like nothing he had was ever good enough. August did have a few versions of what some would call _home_, however, including a foster family that had taken him in for the last of his years as a minor, even friends scattered across the country. If you looked up August Wayne Booth and tried to find him in a phone book, rest assuredly he would be there, somewhere, even if his head no longer rested under the roof that the government may have determined to be his home.

The room was exactly as it always had ben—dirtied towel on the unmade bed, bag openly settled atop the formica dresser that had seen far better days, the wooden box he'd been hauling around for what felt like forever tucked away beside the nightstand—and yet something, some unknown quantity, felt as though it was inherently wrong, upset. August sighed in the darkness, not even moving to shrug off his jacket as he reached for the floor lamp, turning it on to illuminate the room in a dim glow.

That sensation of dryness in his mouth from the prior night, a dryness not born from actual thirst but from the need for something else, crept up on him as he set to straighten and right the room as best he could. The still slightly damp towel was hung on the back of the bathroom door, the empty boxes and bottles of foodstuffs went to the trash—recycling be damned, and when August could take no more of that aching reminder he was so desperately trying to ignore, he went for the small fridge, the one with the compressor that kicked on without fail just when he was about to fall asleep and only kept the contents slightly cooler than lukewarm at best. He found a can of no-name beer inside, his very last one.

August cracked the top open, and while the liquid bathed his mouth it was only a temporary reprieve, something he knew not just from experience but from the way his eyes were drawn to the hotel room door even as he drank. There were a number of bars within walking distance, some sadder than others with their aging locals drinking away their sorrows, and even more available on a short bike ride. He knew this because he'd been to most of them by now, had sampled the cheapest alcohol in them all, and until last night, had avoided the temptation of the flesh that oftentimes that came with them.

But his mouth didn't just crave the alcohol, at least not like he had at one point in his life. No simple bar would suit him, no bar would just _do. _If he left, August knew he'd end up back at that bar from the night before, helplessly and hopelessly waiting for that length of blonde hair to show her face… but if there was one thing August did know, it was that people like her and nights like they'd had were often best left in the past. Lightning rarely ever struck twice. Especially when you invited lightning to stay over and lightning walked her ass out of your hotel room in the morning without so much as a goodbye or a quick, second-go before bidding adieu.

He set the empty beer can down on the counter and in the same move reached with his other hand into his bag. From an inner compartment he pulled a small notebook, one that had seen just as much use as his tattered wallet, and taking it with him, he sat on the bed. The binding of the notebook cracked as he opened it, pages pulling at the threaded seams and loose pieces of paper tucked between the front and back cover.

August flipped towards the end of the book, looking for the last page that was worn with ink and held the most recent notations made in his search for Emma. Avenues that had turned up empty, a few shelters mostly, were crossed out, but then again he'd never truly expected to find her there. He didn't know her save for the few anecdotes from those that had encountered her in the last few months—he was always one step behind—and in fact, August didn't know if he would even recognize her when he saw her face. He didn't really believe in them, not in this world without magic, but he was holding out for a miracle. Divine intervention, they called it here, and if he was going to find her, he was going to need it.

—

He was slow-moving the next day, exhaustion making itself known in the swath of purple under his eyes down to the heaviness he felt in his legs. Not that he enjoyed the kind of mindless work he usually did, but oftentimes the camaraderie he found, however temporary, was a welcomed distraction. So long as he was working on a task, especially one with such defined parameters and an end in sight, his mind didn't dwell on the _other_ task he'd been given long ago. The one that didn't simply end when the day did, the one that didn't come with a rulebook, the one that left all the choices up to him. Today wasn't one of those days.

Half the night he'd stayed up, booking it across town from one social gathering to the next on the words of inebriated students. With a freshly shaved face he didn't stand out at the house parties filled with kids a few years his junior, and with a smile, August always found people willing to talk. _Have you seen Emma?_ Was usually his line he'd drop as he schmoozed, beer in hand, and though it usually ended up with a _no_ and sometimes a false lead on another girl whose name was just close enough, there had been one time when the planets had aligned and he'd been sure the girl that had passed through a half hour before him had been the right one indeed. He hadn't found her that night, but had continued to play the party circuit hoping she'd do again like most kids her age would—even _he_ had too at that age—and lose herself in debauchery with strangers and alcohol she was still too young to drink.

At a stop light he tugged the bandanna around his throat up to cover his face from the cool air, even if that chill was the only thing keeping him awake enough to see straight, and before he even knew it he was taking the long route home again—the one that took him by the bar he'd left with that girl on his arm. His eyes followed the bar's entrance as the bike continued to peel by, watching the people as they piled in, looking again for the particular shade of blonde hair he'd had his fingers in. August nearly thought he'd seen her, but as the girl brushed her ponytail from the collar of her jacket, it was far too short and without the same silkiness he could spot even at a distance, but it had been enough of a start to make his heart—the one he still marveled after all these years that it was _beating_ at all—pound and his temperature rise. With the disappointment settling his pulse, he put his eyes back on the road.

Fridays were the best night to look for wayward teenagers, the one day a week, even greater than Saturday, they _had_ to be out, if only to celebrate the end of the five day school week. August knew enough to know that Emma wasn't in school, but old habits died hard. Maybe, he thought, as the image of the wrong woman in front of the bar still burned in his retinas, he would take the night off, important as it was, and try to forget both of the girls he seemed to now be searching for.

Decision made, August pulled into the nearest available spot to his motel room door, shutting the engine down. He recounted his list of bars, mentally crossing off all the ones that carried a usual cliental too old for his tastes or simply less than willing to go home with a stranger. If he knew anything, it was that the best way to forget something or someone was to find a replacement to fill that spot. He pulled his helmet off, undoing the buckle first before letting it hang at his side as his eyes found the ground while fishing his room key from his pocket, and when he found it, August lifted his head and eyes towards door number _2_ on the approach.

Someone was waiting for him.

"I wasn't sure you'd still be here," Diane said, pushing off from the outer wall of the motel as she turned in his direction. Nervously, she tugged at the strap of her bag where it crossed her chest, the weight supported by her shoulder.

It wouldn't have been the first time he'd thought himself to be seeing things. As a child he'd had the worst waking dreams as a coping mechanism when he'd found himself lost and alone soon after leaving that first children's home behind. Running away back then had been more than his small mind could bear, and so where he saw emptiness he instead dreamt of his father, of talking crickets, and of magic. He'd grown out of it quick enough, hadn't even seen it in his actual dreams in years, and yet as she stood before him, August felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up just as it had so long ago. Maybe this wasn't real.

Diane coughed to clear her throat, and August was left blinking, his face softening at the common normality of her behavior, a testament to just how corporeal she was. "Yeah, I," and he, too, coughed into the back of his hand, unconsciously mimicking her, "I've been staying here awhile."

"That bike's yours?" She asked with a genuine curiosity, taking a step or two nearer, then rocking on her tip toes as she peered around him and the other cars to catch a glimpse of the motorcycle in question. Her eyes were alight when she looked back at him. "How cool."

What awkwardness had existed a moment before was gone, her question setting him at ease. "I got it a few years back. It's not too reliable, but I think I've got a good enough understanding to fix what goes wrong; she's only got so many parts, not like a car or anything."

"You drove all the way from Kansas on a motorcycle?"

"Not all at once," he amended for her, "but yeah. Thankfully I was in some of the warmer states during the winter."

"You just don't seem like, you know, the _biker_ type," Diane said, and August could hear the teasing lilt to her voice.

"What'd you expect? Gang tattoos and a ZZ Top beard?"

"A _what_ beard?"

"You don't even know who ZZ top is?" August laughed, head shaking. "What are you, fifteen?"

She laughed along with him, but quickly changed the subject. "We should go for a ride."

"I would," he lifted his helmet into view, "but I've only got the one. Haven't exactly had a lot of passengers on this thing." Her eyes squinted, disappointment crossing her features. "I didn't expect to see you again—and I don't mean that the way I usually do. You left and I didn't know where to find you."

"'Usually do?'" Diane raised a questioning eyebrow. "You sound a little sentimental for a guy who is _usually_ taking home one night stands, Kansas."

"Yeah, well," he tried to hide his smile, even went so far as to look away hoping to gain some measure of serious composure, but was unable. "Believe me, I'm not really sure how to deal with it."

She returned the smile, and for a moment—one short enough to still definitively be classified as a _moment_ but long enough to not be confused as just an ordinary pause in conversation—neither of them said anything else. Diane was the first one to break, only to laugh, looking away as she ducked her head, her hands going for her bag. She pulled out a small brown paper bag, the kind kids took their school lunch in or hid around their room with their few, small and precious secret treasures inside.

"I brought you something."

"What is it?" He eyed it skeptically, the paper wrinkled and the top folded over to keep the contents inside sealed away, revealing nothing.

Her fingers tightened around it, the brown bag crinkling under the pressure until she eased up. Once, even twice, she moved almost imperceptibly, like she was about to hand it over but pulled herself back at the last second with great hesitation. The third time, she nearly thrust it into his hands, and it was a wonder August didn't drop it at their feet.

The number of gifts he'd gotten had been few and far between in this world, even less so when it came to gifts that weren't necessities. He'd been grateful for the secondhand clothes and shoes, even the toiletries, but things that were actual gifts like toys and other items crafted or bought with someone specifically in mind… those had been rare in his lifetime.

Part of him, the part that was warming his body a few degrees and setting his stomach with a strange feeling—was that _butterflies_?—didn't want to open the package. It wasn't gift wrap, but it was close enough with the mystery it kept inside. While it was an unknown quantity, it could be anything. _Schrodinger's gift,_ he idly joked to himself. It could have been that carved whale left behind in his father's shop once the curse hit, although even he had to admit the bag was much to small for that. Or maybe it was that simple miniature car he'd eyed as a child on this earth and had come close to stealing, but he'd been young then, young enough to still hear his father's and Jiminy's voices in his head before they disappeared as he grew older.

As it turned out, it happened to be a belt buckle, the most garish thing he'd ever laid his eyes on. The metal curled and twisted almost like parts of a flower or a vine, and centered in the middle of the twisting mass was a stone—turquoise? August wished he'd left it in the bag, it had been more valuable to him when it was just a hopeful idea.

"What do you think?" Diane suddenly asked, and when he looked up, her face was an honest blessing in contrast to the ostentatious thing he held in his hands.

"I…" He longed for the words, of the lies that would be enough, but even for Pinocchio—a character in this world he'd been horrified and ashamed to know was renowned for his ability to spin tales and always getting caught—he couldn't muster up a single, believable one. "I'm not sure it's me," August said, going for a play on the truth.

"Of course it is," she replied, and then all at once snatched the buckle from his hands, thumbing over the rock at the center she treated more as a jewel, before reaching to his waist and beginning to undo the plain belt where it was worn.

August recited interstate numbers and their starting locations in his head as she, all too determinedly, unfastened his belt and slid the buckle on, only pulling back from him when her work was done.

"You just put it on, and look, now it's you."

He hated it, would still always hate it, of that much he was sure, but the smile she wore—no, the smile that was as very much a part of her as her mouth itself in that moment—was enough to persuade him otherwise. Somewhere in his chest, that once wooden heart clenched tight.

"I got it at a flea market—" She explained, oblivious to his inner musings.

But August couldn't hold himself back. "—Do you want to get dinner?"

A crease between her brows formed as she took in the question, but it disappeared not even a breath later, that smile once again come back. "Yeah, food would be great."

—

To soothe their growling stomachs and August's sudden appearance of nerves, they'd found comfort in pizza from a little shop a few blocks over. It had been a place he'd stumbled upon his first night in Portland and subsequently eaten at a dozen times since then, a tiny storefront so small in width one could almost stretch their arms out and with a wide enough wingspan touch their fingertips from wall to wall. It was crowded, not as crowded as it got past two in the morning when some of the bars were beginning to clear out and the drunks were needing a bite to eat, but crowded enough for a place of its size, and together they ate a shallow counter along the wall, shoulder to shoulder with one another and the strangers on their opposite sides.

It had almost felt like a date. A real one, the kinds August knew teenagers always dreamt of having but never really came through exactly as planned, the kind he'd also never had for a number of reasons, which had more to do with the angry, bitter, piss-poor attitude he'd had growing up than anything else. Diane had grinned, had laughed, had nearly even choked on a sip of her soda, and even only an hour later he couldn't recall half the things he'd said, just the way she'd looked afterwards, cheeks pink and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes from smiling too much. He was in _deep_.

When it came time to leave that place behind, they'd simply walked—through the neighborhood, across the nearest park, rounding back through the more populated sections. It had gotten chilly, cooler than any night he'd felt there so far, and though it had been an accident, Diane's hand had brushed up against his as they walked. Her fingers were just as cold and so August suggested a solution: coffee.

He wasn't one for the fancy—read: expensive—kind of drinks specialty shops brewed, rather preferring the pot that sat all day on some hot plate in a diner, so long as there was one caveat: it was steaming, scalding, searing hot. But they'd passed a place, some local shop with people milling about inside, the kind that was just as much about ambience as it was about the food and drink, with mahogany bookshelves and mismatched chairs and baristas that wrote clever little lines on the chalkboards outside hoping to draw in more than just the regulars.

August ordered a regular coffee, and Diane, she ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Her first sip left a speck of the white cream just beyond the red of her upper lip, so tiny it couldn't be felt by her, only seen by someone paying close attention, and August, well… he'd been paying close attention all night. It took every fiber of self control he had in his body, plus every missing ounce of it he should have had at all points in his life, not to drop his lips to hers and remove it himself. It was an odd feeling, being shy and withheld with someone he'd already slept with, and more than once as they walked in the vague direction of his motel on the outskirts did he wax poetic on the implications of such thought. Diane ended up brushing the stray dot of whipped cream aside with the back of her hand when he wasn't looking, and August regretted not doing it himself.

"It's late," he said reluctantly, "I should walk you back to wherever you're staying. Or call a cab, at least."

Diane warmed both her hands on the open-topped paper cup, though from the temperature of his own drink, he knew hers had to be just as tepid as his beverage had turned.

"You're getting rid of me already?"

The corner of August's mouth quirked and as a nervous tick, he scratched at the stubble growing in on his cheek. "I was trying to be decent. I've been trying to turn over a new leaf."

"Yeah? That new leaf start before or after the other night?"

"_Before_," he answered truthfully, then laughed at the absurdity of the situation. "I was doing well, too, until you came around."

"Somehow," she mused, "I doubt that. But I can play along if it makes you feel better."

"Where are you staying anyway?"

Diane took a quick mouthful of what remained of the hot chocolate, buying herself some time as she tasted and then slowly swallowed. "Made some friends around here."

"And they're not wondering where you are right now?"

"I'm a big girl, August," she chided. "I can take care of myself."

The offensive glow of yellow lights grew brighter the nearer they closed in on the motel, a dated, tacky beacon shining in the distance. August, however, kept his eyes on her. "You gonna' disappear again in the morning?"

She sheepishly smiled but said nothing.

"I like to think I'm a modern enough guy that I don't require a girl to _sleep_ with me as payment for using my shower. So really, no obligation here." And in case she couldn't tell from his tone of voice or the upturned edge of his mouth, August nudged her upper arm with his own as they walked.

Diane, however, took the opportunity as their bodies brushed together to slip her fingers between his, hands laced together in a sly, easy move. August's head jerked up at the contact, as if some explanation would be on her face. It wasn't there, especially not in the way she didn't even look to him, her gaze steadfastly forward, not even giving him the satisfaction of searching her face for whatever he wanted to see.

August brought them to a stop a few doors down from his room, turning his body in towards hers and her back against the stucco wall. He leaned in, and this time without hesitation or uneasiness or the uncertainty he'd held all evening, he kissed her. The same heat was there from their first and only other time together, but where they'd been sloppier because of the alcohol and the unfamiliarity found in each other, this time they worked in sync. He kissed the far edge of her lips, tasting the barely there flavor of cocoa where it had accumulated in the crease at the corner of her mouth, and when she exhaled out he could smell, taste, breathe in that cinnamon like it had permeated down deep into her lungs.

"August," she moaned, the sudden thump of her cup dropping to the ground, spilling and littering the sidewalk. He, also, gave little thought for the environment in that instant and let his fall between them, some of the liquid surely spattering their shoes.

He didn't dare respond, goading her into calling his name again as his mouth diverted from her own, instead to follow the sharp line of her jaw.

"_August._"

Diane's fingers found themselves in the short strands of his hair, locking in at the top where it was the thickest and longest. Though her back may have still been to the wall, providing them both with a bit of support, she rocked her hips forward into his, pelvis meeting pelvis, and it was a shock to August that rather than simply being taken with the pressure growing in his jeans and the pleasant warmth generated there when she added her own brand of friction, his mind went to the last place he wanted it to. That. Damned. Buckle.

He couldn't help it; August laughed against her neck and the tangle of blonde hair there.

"What's so funny?" A playful frustration accompanied her words.

Lifting his head, he shook it, hand coming to smooth over her wisps of hair he'd sent astray. It was a touch borne of affection, done before he had half the mind to process what the tender stroke meant. With just enough room between them, his eyes met hers, the light overhead reflecting off the lenses of her glasses. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," he repeated and pulled away, but sought out both her hands with his, taking her with him. "Now come on."

—

There was no alarm in the morning, but when August woke of his own accord, Diane was still there. She shared a pillow with him, even had an arm curled about one of his, clutching herself close to him while she slept. They hadn't fallen asleep that way, no, it had been a development in the overnight. He reached his free hand over and caressed finger tips across her temple, but didn't linger long out of fear of being caught in the act.

Extricating himself from her was a delicate process of shifting weight and careful balance, and when he was finally free, August tugged at the thin sheet to cover her and help at least partially preserve the warmth that she'd grown used to during the night. He only moved to fish his shorts off the floor, stepping into them and pulling them on, and no matter how hard he tried otherwise, the subject of his gaze always ended up being her.

It had been a long time since he'd gotten a full night's rest with someone else instead of tossing and turning, slipping fitfully in and out of sleep, his head otherwise occupied with thoughts of just how he was going to convince the stranger to move on. Being blunt usually worked, but others sometimes required a delicate touch, like the promise of a call the next day or the mental nudge of reminding them he had things to do, places to be. With Diane, he thought no such things, and rather than mull over the absence of those usual ideas, August instead reached for the jeans she'd taken off of him, pulling out the nearly crushed packaging of an almost exhausted pack of cigarettes along with a plastic lighter. He walked to the door, cracking it open, and lit one of the cigarettes, tossing the pack back to the dresser.

He inhaled deep, taking the comfort of nicotine and muscle memory, even if the habit as of late had been more of a social thing than anything else; in tough and new situations, offering a cigarette had always been one hell of an ice breaker or gesture of kindness between strangers. August exhaled out the open doorway, holding the burning cigarette in the gap of space as well to keep the fresh scent from adding to the already stale smell of cigarettes that had soaked into the carpeting and walls after years of guests who didn't heed the _No Smoking_ signs.

Absentmindedly, he noticed, just like the night before, Portland's skies were absent of clouds and rain.

The bed's mattress springs squeaked from beyond him, back in the room. He took a final inhale and flicked the cigarette out onto the asphalt, between a pair of parked cars before turning back to where he'd left Diane, simultaneously shutting the door.

"What time is it?" She asked, voice scratching, as she blindly reached for her night stand, fumbling for her glasses.

"A little after ten," he answered and crossed the room to her where he plucked the folded frames off the floor; they must've been jostled during the night. He opened them, and with the kind of closeness he hardly had the right to act on, slid them onto her face.

Diane blinked up at him, pushed a hand under the lenses to rub at tired eyes and then adjusted her glasses. "Thanks."

"I was thinking…"

She hummed, turning her head into the pillow though still making sure her position afforded a view of him. August couldn't help but notice the way the sheet and blanket pulled lower as she twisted, exposing the rosy crest of the top of a nipple, and how she didn't bother to move to cover it.

"…I've got an errand to run, but if you didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, we could do something."

"Aren't you supposed to be looking for your friend?"

_Emma_. August sighed, lips pursed as he glanced away. She was the reason he was here at all, wasn't she? But was there a rule against enjoying his days in the process? Or was this his payment for leaving her, having to work away his days followed by sleepless nights hot on her heels for the next eleven years? Diane dragged the back of her hand along his thigh and August returned to looking into the embodiment of temptation itself—_herself_. "I've got time for that later."

Her entire face was illuminated with the smile she wore. "Sounds like a plan, then."

Bowing forward, August kissed her, this occurrence soft and restrained where all their previous ones had been unbridled. He pulled back, just barely, and once more kissed her, missing her mouth and going for her cheek then the space of skin between her brows. "I'll be back in an hour. Meet me outside."

He dressed quickly as Diane looked on from where she laid, still lethargic and sleep ridden. When he finally moved to go, keys and helmet in hand, she waved him on from the open bathroom doorway, towel loosely gathered about her as the shower ran in the background, warming up.

—

True to his word, if a little late, August returned to the hotel an hour after he'd left. A flare of panic, long bred from years of being constantly left behind, overwhelmed him as he pulled into the parking lot and saw nothing, no one, save for a few scattering of parked cars. He'd been a fool, he told himself, to trust a near stranger. Almost everything he owned had been in that place, at least all the things that meant anything, and he'd been a sap to think they'd still be there when he returned. _The box,_ his heart leapt, and he flicked his wrist to pull down on the throttle as he cut dangerously quick through the lot and towards his room's door.

Diane opened it up, locking it behind her with the spare key.

"Heard you coming a mile away," she said, a hand raised to shield her eyes as she squinted into the sun.

August brought the bike to an abrupt stop, boots on the ground to steady the hulking metal machine as he turned the ignition off. "Hop on."

"You want me to get on that?"

"That's what hop on means."

"I thought you said—"

His head jerked towards the back of bike. "Check the bag."

Though her expression was questioning, brow furrowed and lips tight, she obeyed, approaching August, and more specifically, the motorcycle. She undid the strap on the bag affixed to the bike, and with the object in question in her hands, there was no longer a lack of understanding. Diane held the black helmet up between her hands. "This was the errand?"

August rolled a shoulder in a shrug. "Grabbed some lunch too. Put it on, make sure it fits."

She offered the helmet back to August to momentarily hold, then reached behind her, pulling the elastic from her wet ponytail. Quick enough, and with the kind of practiced ability that amazed August and his short worry free haircut, she'd parted her hair in three equal portions, weaving the lengths into a braid, one tight enough to contain the bulk of her hair. She dipped her head down and forward to him when she was finished, and much like she was a princess taking what was rightfully hers in becoming queen, August placed the helmet atop her head like a crown.

"How do you—?" She tugged awkwardly at the chin strap.

"I've got it," he replied, and worked the band through the opposite end's metal frame, tightening it until the prong fastened the separate pieces together. August patted the helmet when he was done.

"So I just," Diane began, no hesitation as she excitedly climbed onto the seat behind him, her knees cradling his hips, "hold on tight?"

August took each of her hands, pulling them around his sides to his stomach. She got the hint, clasping them together and drew her chest to his back.

"Exactly like that."

He was wrapped up in her, not all too unlike he had been the night before, he mused, albeit this time with far more clothes between them than ever before. Turning the key, the engine roared back to life rumbling beneath them, and Diane tightened her hold on him a little bit more.

"Hold on," he said reassuringly, and as he eased off his grasp on the brake, the motorcycle lurched forward.

Eighty miles outside Portland's city limits, sitting with Diane on a roadside cliff overlooking the pacific coast, August had the sudden realization why he'd spent the last seventeen years of his life miserable. If he'd felt anywhere near how he did now—content, free, _unburdened_—there wouldn't have been room for a second thought about the girl he'd left behind and what he owed a town of people who might as well have been on the other side of the world, galaxy, universe, as far away as they felt to him in that moment. He may never have cared to go back.

—

The weekend worked itself into the next, and August's days in between were more often than not spent with Diane at his side. The work days were still long, painfully so, but no longer was the exhaustion fueled sleep the only thing he looked forward to when night came, for the first time there was something—someone—else to share the burden of loneliness. And Diane… she did it well.

It had been easy to fall into something of a routine, the two of them fitting together like they'd known one another for years rather than days, even if he wondered more than once how much of it was owed to that _newness_, a learning period when everything seemed blissfully right. This world, August had found out long ago, was far different from the one he'd originally belonged to, and not least of all because the notion of true love and forever were little more than words here, but he'd decided, like most other worrisome things, to ignore that doubtful thought as it came to the forefront of his mind.

"When you find your friend," Diane asked from the floor, sitting with her back to the wall, "what are you going to do?"

He'd only barely heard her words from his half-asleep state, a subtle enough difference from the background noise of the TV playing at low volume to call his attention. Lying on his side, August lifted his head off the pillow, looking in her direction. "Sorry, what was the question?"

"I mean, are you going to leave? Is there some sort of plan for when you do find him?"

"I haven't…" he pressed his fist to his eye, scrubbing away fatigue, "…really thought that far ahead, I guess. And it's a she, actually. I just wanted to make sure she was all right, see if she needed help in getting her life on the right track."

"I think this is where I'm supposed to tell you if this is actually just a big ploy in stalking some poor unsuspecting girl…" Though her words held a mock seriousness to them, August could tell from the off-centered smile pulling at the corner of her mouth that she was anything but. "I do know the number for the authorities and I'm good at remembering faces, I'll have no problem helping them make your sketch."

"Oh believe me, I've no doubt you'd throw me under the bus, given the chance."

Diane winked and looked back down to her work where it sat before her, feeding on another silver bead to a cord of leather. She knotted it in position, irregularly but organically spaced according to the other decorative beads, and then feeding out a few more inches of length, cut it from the extra. It was a process she'd become an expert at by now, judging by the number of similarly crafted bracelets lining her wrist, and in the final step tied the ends around the opposite side, creating a knot that allowed for slippage back and forth, and thus, adjustment of size.

She slid the final product on her wrist as she'd done the others and pulled it tight to fit, admiring her work. It earned a reserved smile of approval, and afterwards she gathered the various pieces of her work up—cord, beads, even the small set of scissors—and removed them from the wooden box she'd been using as a platform for her crafting. Diane stretched to place the items into her nearby bag but stopped suddenly, and August recognized that inquisitive expression.

"I can't believe I never asked before." Diane rapped her knuckles on the box's top. "But what the hell is in this?"

That was cause enough to make August sit up, setting his bare feet on the ground. She eyed the box with curiosity, leaning around to see the edges and the backside, then returning to the front of the box where its latches kept it firmly closed. There was nothing to give it away, in fact the box had been chosen for such a reason, so as to provoke no interest in the casual passersby. A box, that in the right circumstances, could be overlooked and forgotten for generations with no one caring to even wonder what was inside. The plan had worked, too, with not a soul he'd crossed finding any interest in it since it had come into his possession years ago. That was, of course, until now.

August… he knew what was kept locked away in there, but he also knew it wasn't seen by the naked, unbelieving eye. To understand, to truly understand, one had to look into that box with their eyes and minds fully open, and to find such a person in this world that could summon the courage to believe in the impossible—someone that wasn't a child at least—would be near impossible. Diane was still a stranger for all intents and purposes, and yet August dared to test the less rational instinct to him that said she was far more than that.

He breathed deep, a steadying kind of inhale that calmed body and mind, and slid from the bed to the floor, kneeling in front of her, the box between them.

"Do you believe in magic?"

Diane lifted her head sharply, eyes narrowed in judgement. His pulse jumped at the possibility of her answer and the intimacy of the moment they shared. But like the belt buckle she'd gifted him the week before, maybe the truth had better been left a mystery with all the potential it had held.

She grinned, big and wide, and then spoke. "I thought it when we met, but now I _know_ you're really crazy after all."

His face may not have given him away, but inside, his soul, spirits, hope, fell. With it came back that weighted burden he'd thought he'd shaken off, and though they were mere feet apart, their fingers even touching on the carpet, August felt helplessly alone. He reached towards her side of the box, undoing each latch, and then lifted the box's top open in one pleading, final attempt at getting her to see what was right under her nose.

Diane's eye fell to the contents of the box.

"Really?"

Where nothing existed before, a spark of something bloomed inside him.

"A typewriter?"

And then that spark was extinguished, like a gust of wind to a brightly burning candle's flame.

"I…" he cleared his throat nervously, watching as she ran her fingers over what she saw to be just a typewriter, old and antique. "I want to write."

"About what?"

August hadn't rehearsed any part of his explanation aside from the first line, should anyone have ever asked about that damned typewriter, and though it had intended only to be a simple cover story, he believed it right then. He really did. "I don't know."

Diane snorted with a bit of laughter then looked back up to him as he closed the lid. She helped flip over the locking mechanisms herself. "Well you should. I bet you've already seen more than most people have."

"Oh," his eyes rolled. She didn't know how true it was. "I don't know if I'd say that."

"Where's that place you said you wanted to go, again?" she asked with enthusiasm, the kind she'd been showing him with increasing frequency. "Phuket? You can write about all the things you see there."

That had been a dream of his he'd shared with her late one night, talking of the waters so blue they seemed painted by strokes of a brush rather, a place he had only seen in photographs, video, and sometimes, in his sleep. His cheeks burned hot as she recalled the secret hope he'd shared with her. "Maybe. Some day."

"Don't say it like that." Diane cupped his cheek, leaning towards him, and then pressed her lips to his, savoring the slow, but long, kiss. "If you can still stand me by then, maybe I'll even go with you. Ruin all your fun."

August had always envisioned the trip made on his own, never with another at his side, but even he had to admit, the prospect of sharing such a place with someone else was the way it was meant to be experienced.

"Until then, though, will you settle for a shower instead?"

It wasn't quite Phuket, but it would do.

Together, they stood, August nudging the box to the edge of the room where it usually belonged, out of sight and out of mind so that he needn't be reminded of what Diane did, or didn't, see inside of it. It had been an unrealistic expectation, he told himself as a comfort, to think that someone could even begin to understand the parts of his life from long ago. An enchanted forest, magic, the fact that he'd been carved and not, like every other living breathing person, been born.

He followed behind her on the short trip to the bathroom, watching her undress as she went, a trail of clothing left like crumbs. In no time the shower was running, warming from cold to what passed for scalding hot in the dodgy motel. August pulled his shirt up and off, setting it to the bathroom counter, and as he moved for his belt buckle and jeans, Diane spun around, hands to his chest, stilling him as she stood, unclothed and down to nothing.

"Grab the hairbrush from my bag, will you? I'll never get these knots out if I don't brush first."

August nodded in quiet acknowledgment and returned to the bedroom, first to sift through the smaller of her bags—not a likely place, but the easier starting point. The purse was a mess of clutter, from the bigger items like her wallet to smaller ones, an errant tampon, a bottle of nail polish, a tangled chain with a pendant strung from it, price tag still attached. He set the bag back down and moved onto the other, first blindly reaching a hand in to the heap of wrinkled clothing. When that failed to turn up anything that felt obviously like a rigid, prickly hairbrush, he took the process more seriously, pulling out shirts, dresses, underwear, all the things he'd seen her wear already, and set them aside on the floor.

At the bottom of her bag, his fingers caught on something soft, and August pulled it gently until he was able to see the material in the light of the room. It was white and from what he could tell, had been knitted—or was it crocheted?—by someone with great care. He studied it briefly, glancing back up to the partially open bathroom door, but more importantly, to where Diane waited. Someone cared for her, once upon a time, and at once, August was happy and shamefully jealous. He looked back down to the blanket and moved to slid it back inside, and then his heart suddenly stopped, catching sight of the purple ribbon weaved between the woolen yarn.

August tugged and tugged, his calm lost to him as his heart pounded, until the blanket was free and haphazardly spread over Diane's bag and clothing. He searched its surface, finding nothing, then opted to flip it over, and what stared back at him was something he had never expected to see again.

Embroidered over a piece of white fabric that was carefully stitched to the blanket was her name. _Emma._


	3. Chapter 3

_Apologies ahead of time for any typos, errors, and word flow problems. Also for anyone curious, this story will be continuing into Storybrooke and the current timeline of the show._

* * *

Faster than any sensation, good or bad, that August had ever felt in his life, he broke out in a cold sweat. His stomach lurched, and just short of that tickling at the back of his throat that was the direct precursor, he nearly emptied out his stomach, still pleasantly full from a late dinner beside Diane—_no, Emma—_out on the carpet. The blanket was still in his hands even as the nausea persisted though the worst had passed, and when August's vision came back into focus, he both saw and felt just how tightly he gripped the soft knit.

Letting the blanket go, August scrambled for Diane's purse, pulling it nearer, some of the contents spilling out across the floor though he paid it no mind, tunnel vision striking him. August ripped the wallet out, then set course for looking for what he had in mind. He found the first ID, the one he'd picked up off the floor at the bar and then returned to her, but tucked behind the outdated bus passes and other slips of paper, he found what he'd been searching for. Another license, another state, another name.

Emma Swan.

The picture was different, a face even younger than the one he'd recalled seeing on her falsified identification, a little rounder and fuller than how she looked now. It was unquestionable though with the way her eyes pierced him from the grainy photo and her lips stiffly flattened together, a neutral expression he'd seen from Diane all too much when she wasn't quite sure how to react.

Time slowed for a moment, even as sweat hit the back of his neck and trickled down along his spine, as he looked at—really looked at—the blanket this time. When he'd first pulled it from her bag it had been nothing, just another piece of something that was part of Diane's life in some way he didn't yet know, and now… now it wasn't just a sentimental keepsake. It was Emma's.

It was in miraculous condition for its age, a blanket seventeen years old that had crossed time and space via that wardrobe he'd helped carve with his own two hands. From its care, August could tell it had been loved, had been cherished, and yet it had been used somewhat regularly rather than kept hidden away and forgotten, as evidenced by the slight discoloration around the ends and a few pulls in the knotting. There even was, he noticed, a few not so gentle repairs made to it, and for a second August imagined the scene, Emma hunched over the only link to her past, mending what imperfection sought to ruin.

He was glad she'd kept it, that it hadn't gotten lost like the few things he'd brought with him save for the hat he'd likewise carried around like a talisman to remind him of where he'd come from.

The bathroom door opened, telltale squeak of the hinges.

"August, you get lost—"

In ways he couldn't exactly explain, the woman standing before him hardly looked like the one he'd left two minutes before. Sitting across from her in a diner or lying beside her in bed, he'd traced the features of her face with his eyes more times than he could count. She'd quickly become familiar to him, and even the pieces of her that seemed innocent to others, August had often drawn up on memories of his lips kissing over. Now, as Emma—no longer Diane—stopped where she stood, clutching the towel around her to her chest, he saw her mother's chin, her father's nose.

Emma's eyebrows rose along with her widened eyes, and more so than he could hear, he was able to witness her sputtering loss of words. She raised a hand, open palm a gesture usually given in hopes to calm, or maybe even turning one's self in.

"I can explain." Eyelashes fluttered, she glanced to his hands and the messy scene around where he kneeled.

He didn't have the words, not as his head swam with the implications of the last week and a half.

"You found—and I didn't know you_,_" she said somewhat pleadingly, her thoughts fragmented, incomplete. "I couldn't risk being busted by a stranger." Emma took a careful, slow step forward, as though approaching a feral dog. "I know you—and me—then this happened," a motion of her hand between the two of them. She clenched her eyes shut, and August saw the bobbing of her throat as she swallowed hard followed by a grit of her teeth. When she returned, she was more sure of herself. "I got caught up in the lie and I didn't know how to make it right. How could I have told you?"

"Emma," he tried saying her name, and even though it hadn't been a rarity for him, it _was_ under these conditions. It was always _about_ her, never _to_ her. August's voice scratched as he spoke. "You're barely_ seventeen_." He laughed, first quietly and then almost manically, though curbing it quickly. "My god, you're practically a fucking kid and we've been—"

"I'm not!" She argued, raising her voice, and her tone turned angry. "I've _never_ been." Emma took another step, followed by another, these ones more determined than her previously cautious ones. "And what about you, August?" she said, turning the tables back on him as a way to diffuse the tension on herself, a move he was familiar with. "Don't tell me you've been completely upfront with me. Why are you really here? That girl you're looking for, who is she to you really?"

He bowed his head, eyes locked on that blanket before him. If he tried hard enough, let his vision get blurry, he could almost see the leaves and dirt and other detritus stuck to it as he had when he'd carried her, the two of them frightened and alone, from the tree that had saved them both. "I didn't lie to you," he bit back, and the words hurt as they came out. A phantom sensation brushed against the tip of his nose. "At least you know who the hell I am."

"Do I? And I told you to get a fucking hairbrush, not go through my purse." Emma kneeled in front of him, unceremoniously snatching her wallet from the floor along with the other paraphernalia, real and forged, that went along with it.

Her fingers brushed against his as she took her license, the real one this time, from him and concealed it away.

The rest of her movements were just as abrupt and lacking in grace as she desperately tried to keep the towel covering her—the intimacy the two had one shared under false pretenses had dissolved—while also making the mad dash at gathering up the pieces of her life he'd left scattered on the floor.

Part of him… it wanted to reach out to her, to cup her cheek and tilt her head back to him, to see the woman he'd found companionship in, but also the girl he'd been looking desperately for all this time. He didn't though, didn't dare because he more than knew she would brush his hand violently aside and such skin to skin contact would drudge up the recent past. Like that morning for example, when they'd had a late start after he spent twenty minutes between her thighs, the hem of her dress over his head. She'd come and cried out his name with such vigor, and then in the following minute when her breathing steadied, had said it again with a much calmer, serene affection. He didn't need to remember that, not now.

He felt sick at the memory, a sensation that partially arose with the sudden revelation as to her true identity, and even more so because he knew he would never, not ever, no matter how hard he tried, be able to forget the way she tasted.

"I'll go," Emma was muttering as she shoved wrinkled laundry into her bag. "I'll get dressed and just go."

That was when August broke his previous word to himself, suddenly folding his hand over her forearm. "No," he said before he could reconsider. If he lost her a second time, he knew she'd do her damned best to disappear, more so than she already had. What was more was that instantly he knew all those stories she'd fed him—about friends, about where she'd been staying before she'd become a regular in sharing her nights with him—had been lies as well. She was just as new to the area as he was; there had never been anyone waiting for her here. Like him, Emma was on her own. "…It's late. At least stay the night and we can," he let go of her arm, creating artificial distance between them, "talk about it tomorrow. If you even want to," he added.

Her brow furrowed and the rest of her went still, gaze leveling and meeting with his. He didn't know how he'd missed it before, maybe she'd just been as proficient as he was at hiding the truth, but her eyes gave her away as younger than she'd first claimed to be.

August sensed her hesitation. "Please."

Emma didn't reply, instead retreating to the bathroom. She shut the door behind her, muffling the sound of the shower's running water.

It was an agonizing struggle to get himself off the floor, a simple act that he felt as though he would be unable to accomplish given the burden of new weight that hung like a millstone around his neck.

Outside, the cement of the sidewalk was cold on his bare feet, but August kept moving, pacing away from the room and along the length of the motel and parking lot to the deserted end where the rooms regularly sat vacant. He rounded the corner, disappearing out of sight.

Tears flooded his eyes as soon as the soles of his feet hit the mix of dirt and wildly growing weeds, and August pressed both hands to his eyes, trying to stem the flow. After everything, after the last two years of trying to be simply _better_ than he had been, he had yet another bullet point to add to the staggeringly long list of wrongs he'd committed. Leaving Emma as a baby. Getting in that wardrobe at all. The things he'd done for money as a desperate kid—hell, a desperate adult, too. The deceptions he'd easily given way to in order to keep himself afloat. And now… now he had this.

August beat the side of his fist into the wall of the motel, decades upon decades worth of coats of paint flaking off and embedding into the side of his hand. He roared, shouting out of frustration, anger, disappointment, with the worlds and more importantly, with himself. His body crumbled, barely remaining standing where it was, and August leaned forward, his head against his arm as it pressed to the wall. He sucked in a deep breath, and willed himself and the tears to stop.

It was minutes before he lifted his head, eyes stinging as they opened and adjusted to even the light of the full moon and unsteadily flickering street lamp. August wiped at his eyes once, just to rid himself of the heaviest of moisture, leaving the rest to dry on its own. He reached into the pockets of his jeans, one hand for where his wallet was tucked away in his back pocket, the other in one at the front searching for his cellphone. Though it hadn't been something he'd used in years, August knew exactly where the folded scrap of paper he was searching for was. He looked at it every time he opened his wallet, thumbing over the inked digits, but never going further.

He input the numbers quickly, but hesitated on submitting it through, pausing again to shut his eyes, weight shifting on feet growing increasingly numb from the cold. August pressed send, and still with his eyelids closed, drew the phone to his ear.

It rang. And rang. And rang. And then someone picked up. The voice was fatigued, but polite.

"I need to speak with Mother," August said. "I know—but it's an—just tell her it's August calling. She'll… understand."

He waited, pacing anxiously, until someone was once again on the other line.

"August," her voice, just as sweet as when he'd heard it as a child made of wood, nearly sung over the line. "What's happened?"

What's happened? It had been years since the only other time they'd talked and she'd reassured him that he wasn't as alone as he thought he was. _Everything_ had happened, he wanted to say.

Instead, he opted for untimely pleasantries. "Hello Blue."

"Are you all right?"

"No," he replied, using into motel's side wall as a suport, hand scrubbing his face. "I'm really not." The other half of the conversation was absent, waiting, and that expectation of an explanation left him blurting the words out. "I slept with Emma."

More silence.

"I was trying, trying to find her, to be better, to be what she was going to need," he began, mindless drivel leaving his mouth, his words bordering on incoherent rambling as he tried to explain. Or excuse himself, was more like it. "She said she was someone else and I didn't—I didn't know, not until—the blanket. I found her blanket."

"_Pinocchio,"_ she said firmly and just loud enough to break through to him while still observing the kind of hushed tones that were needed for any outward mention of the lives they'd all once lived.

"We argued," he said quickly, "and I don't know if she's going to stay—what if she leaves? I can't make her stay, I can't explain who I am. You don't understand how it is here. She'll think I'm out of my mind."

"I fear trying to tell her would only give her more incentive to go," she said forlornly. "This wasn't…" Blue sighed loudly, the phone rustling as she walked, then a loud clank as she presumably shut a door to give their conversation the privacy it warranted.

August covered both his eyes with his free hand, his thumb running vertical along his temple, as he tried to block out the rest of the world, even down to the bugs that hummed and chirped in the nearby trees and brush. "Wasn't how it was supposed to be," he finished for her. "I know. This is my fault. All of this… everything."

"That blame goes back long before you were ever alive. It hurts me to know you have to carry this burden when it isn't yours, and that you've suffered on your own your whole life, trying to atone for everyone else's sins. It was always too much for a child to bear."

He wanted to believe her and the hollow comforts she offered him. In a logical sense, August knew the source of all their struggles laid with the curse and the woman who had cast it, but logic didn't matter much when it came to that innate, deep feeling in his blood, his muscles, his bones. He'd done wrong and that was all he could see.

"Show her the box," she advised. "Maybe it will be enough to—"

"She's seen it," August said remorsefully with a cough, clearing his throat. "I mean, she's seen it but she didn't see _it_." Nearby, a car pulled into the parking lot, and the rumble of an engine to otherwise interrupt the night was welcomed. The door slammed, and as the paired couple disappeared from view, their mumbled words and laughter were tangled, almost as if they'd been one to begin with. August let out a breath he'd been holding when he heard their motel room door shut. "I never knew what I was going to do when I found her… but it wasn't this. I just wish I could go back and start over and get it right."

"We all wish for that, but it wasn't ever possible, not even in our world. My worry now is that beyond everything else that you'll both have to face in the next eleven years, after what's transpired between you both—she won't trust you. You'll be an old lover that shares an unpleasant past, not the friend she'll need to convince her of the path she has to follow when the time comes."

A gust of fleeting bravado came with the wind. "Maybe we could—"

"Do you believe it?" She asked, already knowing his words. "Are you sure in your heart that no matter the troubles, the hardship, the pain, that you and Emma will be able to move forward together from here? Are you certain of it?"

For as long as he could remember, August had been a scared little boy, afraid and wayward, lying out of fear of the consequences of the truth. Those traits, they had followed him into adulthood, the kind of man who took the easy way rather than the _right_ way, who ran away instead of facing what was coming, who was as dishonest with himself as he was with everyone else. He thought of Emma, the girl he'd grown to know in days rather than years, and though he more than knew by now that he had hardly even scratched the surface when it came to her, he also knew he _wanted_ to.

What in the enchanted forest they had called fate, here they called coincidence, and yet August wasn't convinced he'd found her in that bar due to a simple coincidence. It had been fate and maybe that fate also meant that this was how it was supposed to be. He'd done wrong by her as a child but here they were, grown or mostly so, with a second chance sitting in his lap. He could fix it, he was almost sure, fix it better than any old cuckoo clock in his father's workshop. And if this second chance meant that August would be more to her than simply a friend, perhaps a companion in the closest of terms, then maybe that had also been the way it was meant to be.

But time hadn't changed him, at least not in this regard. Pinocchio was still a scared little boy. He thought of all the people that depended on him, some he knew and most that he didn't, but that had lives and families and children. He thought of his father.

"No," he finally said, regretting the words as they came. "I can't be sure."

Blue sighed with resignation. "Then there's no other choice."

—

His hands would take weeks to stop smelling of tobacco, he believed, as he finished the last cigarette in the pack. It had been half full when he'd taken a seat on the sidewalk's curb, lighting the first with the hopes it would draw to him the calm he so desperately needed. That phone call made halfway across the country had left him rattled, even more so than he'd been before he'd dialed the number at all. The cigarette burned down nearly to the filter and with great remorse, August took a final inhale and flicked the remains to the asphalt where the rest littered the ground.

Alcohol might've been a better solution to his problems, but besides the fact that he was barefoot and woefully underdressed for the weather, he didn't trust that liquor on his breath would've offered Emma the best comfort when he returned, if she would have even still been there at all. So cigarettes had been the stand-in, a poor substitute at that, and with the last of them gone and his toes tingling, he had nothing left to keep him outside.

August stood, and after first rubbing both hands down his face from forehead to cheeks to jaw, making sure to wipe aside any dry vestiges of tears shed half an hour earlier, he turned back to the door to his room. Along the edges of the curtains that hung in the window, the drab yellowing fabric that had surely hung for the last decade, the light of the television set flickered unsteadily though he heard no outward volume. He gripped the handle, breathed deep, and upon exhale, stepped into the room.

Emma was sitting on the bed, showered and dressed, as if prepared to leave. She looked up to him while he closed the door.

That flattened mouth was far more serious than he'd usually seen from her, come to think of it he'd only seen such a bereft expression that first night together when they'd talked of his father. Her words had seemed innocent then, a comment made between strangers, but he understood it better now. She didn't know where her family had gone, if she'd been wanted at all, and for seventeen years she'd been left to assume the worst, even if it couldn't have been further from the truth. The fact that she believed such a thing—that was on him.

Her lips pursed and she swallowed, ready to speak. "It's late and I… I don't have anywhere else to go right now," she made her confession, a shameful one if the avoidance of his eyes and lowering of her head was any indication. It had been something that had been true for him many times in his life, but unlike her, he had never had the courage to say aloud to another living soul. "But if you need me to, I get it, okay."

In his mind's eye, August saw himself drawn to her, kneeling before where she sat, his arms wrapped around her middle as he clutched her close, determined to hold her as tightly as he should've since she was a child. He wanted that closeness, the physical proximity he shied away from in others with the exception of trysts with women for the night, but he also wanted to give it on back to her, hoping she understood the significance.

He didn't, though, instead emptying his pockets on the dresser's top, turning his back to her. "I already told you to stay." His words came out gruffly. "I meant it. But… I've got work in the morning."

"Right," she softly answered, mercifully choosing not to call him out on his half-truths. He did have somewhere to be come the AM, but they'd stayed up far later than the clock currently read, usually whittling away the early hours of the night finding out just how close their bodies could get.

August stripped where he stood until he was down to just his underwear, then headed for the bathroom.

Emma called out to him just before he slipped away, and he paused in the doorway.

"August—"

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"I'm sorry."

August shallowly nodded in receipt of her sentiments and he stepped into the bathroom the rest of the way, closing himself in. He looked at the image reflected back at him in the mirror. "Me too."

—

The mood had change when he woke the next morning. She slept beside him, but apart, much like they had that first night when they'd gone to bed with alcohol on their breath. Emma had invaded his space after that first time, and it surprised him how much he hadn't minded it; there was a certain satisfaction that came with sharing body heat with someone else. That morning light, harsh even when it only came through the edges of curtains and blinds, wasn't made less punishing by her presence now, instead it felt just as cruel and tormenting as it always had.

August pushed himself up on an elbow, half-heartedly committing to wakefulness even if his body otherwise said no. The room looked different in the morning, like it had somehow been doused in a blanket of optimism that hadn't been there the night before. There was no reason for such imaginings, not with the way he knew things to really be, and it was with a heavy heart he thought about his conversation with the Blue Fairy the night before. He looked from Emma's collection of belongings on the floor—her only worldly things just as his own, though his were in closets and drawers for the most part—and then back to the girl in question where she slept on the opposite end of the bed.

Too much time he'd spent wondering what life would have been like had he not left her behind in that children's home. Would efforts have been made to keep them together, even though they weren't related? It had been his mistake at the time to not insist that they were, but he'd been frightened and so lost, eager to find anyone that seemed kind, that he hadn't understood ramifications of the words he'd said.

That first night had been the worst of his life, even beyond the night he'd given up his existence to save his father. They'd questioned him endlessly even while trying to provide a calming comfort to him, but there had been so much he didn't understand, didn't know. _Where are you from? What is your name? Where are your parents?_ _Where did you find the baby?_ He'd tried to be brave but it had been too much as the full weight and understanding that not only would he not see his father until he was a grown man if ever, but that the fate of all those he loved and cared for depended on him. He'd been left with the strangers and could only cry instead of speak.

Would he have been her older brother? The one that fed her stories of a life they were meant to live somewhere else? Would she have grown out of the fairytale dreams as she aged, not to believe him anyway? Sometimes, he thought the only reason he'd survived in this world at all was because of how little he actually thought about that other world, at least in his day to day. On particularly bad nights, thoughts of the past often plagued him, that much was true, but when it came to getting by… he'd learned to adapt. Emma, she had learned, too.

August flattened out into the bed again, and just as his eyes shut, desperate to claim a few more minutes of sleep, the alarm clock at his bedside came to life, the shrill ringing sounding more like a scream to his ears. He quickly hit a hand to the top, silencing it.

Emma groaned in her asleep state.

It was, perhaps, best that he got up.

—

At the other end of the day, the sun just beginning to set, August sat alone in a corner booth, the last one along the front row of windows of a diner that looked more like it belonged off an interstate outside of Topeka than in Portland. Maybe that was why he'd liked it so much; it was generic, like the fixtures inside of it and just about every other diner he'd ever seen had all come from the same place. Some kind of catalog order company that only sold chrome edged countertops and matching swivel stools with fake leather seats, the same ceramic china, the identical decor, hell—even the same damn smell that went well beyond the deep fryer.

In a way, it was the closest way to feel at home when he was so very, very far away, which explained how there was always a cup of coffee waiting for him in his usual spot when his regular waitress inside spotted his bike pulling up to park. It wasn't what he always wanted, just what he'd had the first few times he'd been there, and he hadn't the heart to tell the older woman—a middle aged woman named Sandy, the kind of lady he thought would make a good mother, and on a few lonely nights he had even taken consolation in the idea of her being his—that sometimes he just wanted a coke or maybe even a water. He always drank it anyway, and never forgot to leave a tip.

He'd brought Emma there a few times since they'd met and it had pleased him somewhere deep when the waitress, his imagined surrogate mother by his thoughts alone, had said that she—Diana, Emma, whoever she was—seemed _lovely_. Emma had smiled and laughed and he had, too.

August was on his second cup of coffee, the bottom just about drained, when like the most faithful clock he'd ever known, his waitress was there with a fresh pot.

"Good on milk?"

He hooked a finger through the handle of the small metal jug of milk, his thumb pressing down on the edge of the top so it pivoted on the hinge and lifted, exposing the contents within. It would be lukewarm by now, but it was no consequence.

"Got enough," he said with a nodd in silent thanks as the cup was filled with steaming coffee, just enough room left for milk and sugar. She was an old pro.

"You're quiet tonight. Don't seem like yourself."

That was like her, always exchanging sweet words with customers. It was like most waitresses in places like these, people who served more as bartenders or priests maybe, always willing to help a lost soul or just listen to an interesting story. August didn't care if the intention of it was for a few extra bucks, even if he scarcely had much to go around, it was nice to have someone to care, even if they didn't completely mean it. Besides, he genuinely liked Sandy.

He went about his process of making his coffee, sugar and milk added until it was a milky beige instead of a deep caramel, while he gathered his thoughts.

"Thinking," he said poignantly, and though he didn't feel it, he offered her half of a smile. "You heard from your son lately?"

Sandy rested her elbow up against the back of the seat opposite him, shifting her weight into it as she thought. She was one of those animated people, the kind you could tell their thoughts at any moment by the expressions they made or the way they held their hands. Her lips pressed together tightly, a steeliness down to even the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes that gave away how hard she attempted to keep it all tamped down, but also how close she was to losing that control. "That idiot?" A forced, aborted laugh left her throat and she shook her head. "He just likes to make me worry."

August wondered if there was anyone who worried about him. A daily basis would be asking for too much, he'd settle for a once a year casual thought on someone's mind. It didn't even have to be overly sentimental, nothing like that, perhaps just even an _I wonder where…_ but August knew it was as unlikely as his own father thinking about him when he'd had his memories taken away. Marco, he thought he could remember the Blue Fairy telling him, that was who his father was now.

"Well," he forced more of a smile, and after a moment it became genuine. "You're a good mom. Give him time, he'll realize what a jerk he's been."

"I hope so." Raising the hand holding the coffee pot, Sandy gestured out the windows of the diner and towards an incoming guest. "Looks like your girl finally made it. Think she's in the mood for her usual?"

August twisted in his seat, craning his neck to looking half-backwards and out the window. He only just caught the glimpse of her backside as she stepped through the outer storm doors into the entranceway. "Yeah," he said, glancing back to the waitress. "She'd like that, I think."

Sandy rested a hand to his shoulder, brief but informal, before moving on. "I'll see to it."

His back was to Emma, and the rest of the diner for that matter, as she approached. It was a conscious decision not to turn around and eye her, instead sitting patiently as he stirred a spoon through his already well mixed cup of coffee. August drew the mug to his lips, sitting forward as he did so, a few errant droplets of spilled coffee dripping from the bottom of the cup back to the soiled saucer. Emma slid into the seat across from him, and before she'd even taken her coat off, Sandy dropped that second cup off. The air smelled so sweet of the chocolate, whipped cream, and cinnamon that he swore he could taste it on his tongue, or rather, could taste it on _Emma_ on his tongue.

He set the cup back down, two of his fingers still hooked through the small handle. "Hey."

Emma opted for sipping her own drink rather than directly looking in his direction. "Work?"

"Slow," he quickly said, his elbow coming to rest on the table. "How was…" his brow furrowed, "whatever it is that you do during the day?"

She didn't choose to elaborate on his open ended question and instead repeated his answer on back. "_Slow_."

August sighed, slouching like he was far more tired than he actually felt. "I wanted to come here to talk, but if there's no point, you should tell me now, Emma." He knew her well enough to know it was bait she might have jumped at, if only to be obstinate, so he didn't give her the time to answer. "But I think you owe me this. Just… talking."

A spoonful of the whipped cream wound up in her mouth, sucking the spoon clean. She set it back on the side of the cup's saucer and then exaggeratedly looked beyond him, even tipped herself out of the booth just a little bit. "Where'd Sandy go? I'm starving."

It was moments like these when Emma showed her age, her _real_ age he knew now. Not that he couldn't be stubborn and childish when he wanted to be, but there was something different when it came from her. She seemed a million years younger than he'd seen her as before.

"Do you know what you want?" He played along as though nothing was amiss.

"Yeah, but," and finally she let their eyes meet, defiant. "I can pay for myself."

"What exactly do you do for money?" He said outright before he could rethink his words. "Because right now, right now you should be learning how to spot motifs in literature and maybe even some calculus."

"I dropped out. There wasn't a point, I wasn't exactly college material and no one cared if I went anyway. You're one to talk—"

"Why'd you leave?" It was the burning question he had, the one he'd never gotten an answer to with what little information he'd dug up about her over the last two years.

Emma sighed, idly stirring her spoon in her cup to mix up the slick of melted whipped topping that floated on the surface. "Why not? I didn't have anything there. I was like you, had a couple foster homes, nothing that stuck more than a few years, no one that cared when their job was done."

"I get that," he offered his comforts. "But I also know that this wandering you're doing… it doesn't end well for anyone. You're young enough still, there are places that can help you. I know the system's put a bad taste in your mouth after everything, but there are good people out there, Emma. You just have to find them." If the roles had been reversed and he'd been seven years younger sitting opposite someone across the table, that was what he would've wanted, needed to hear. Would he have taken the advice? He couldn't say, but he wished he'd heard it just the same.

"_You're_ a good person," Emma said, her words open ended.

August's head shook. "No. I'm really not."

"Why not? Explain it to me then."

"I drink, I gamble, I used for awhile, sold drugs to kids even younger than you who didn't even understand wrong from right yet. There are entire _months_ I can't even remember. Just because you look at me now and see someone who's barely got his shit together—even by your standards—it doesn't make me a good person." He took a breath, his self-loathing out in the open between them finally. It was all the things he'd been trying not to let her see about him.

He had to give it to her, she didn't stand up and walk away at that. "You're too hard on yourself."

August's tone was piercing as he bit back at her, his patience dwindling. "And you're a bit god damn naive."

Emma didn't say anything, appearing as though she'd recoiled in on herself, body stiff as she leaned back in the seat and as physically far away from him as possible without leaving. Red hot knives of guilt slid through his gut at the sight.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I just… you can be so much more than where you're headed right now, Emma. I look at you and see a lot of myself and if seven years from now you end up exactly like me, I don't think I'll ever be able to live with it."

"I don't understand why you care so much," she said, eyes on her lap. "We what… fucked for a week and a half? I mean, it was good, and it's been nice—being with someone. But come on," Emma eyed him, "we hardly know each other. It wasn't a big deal."

If August had any gifts, it wasn't in reading people. He wasn't particularly adept at hearing the truth behind someone's words, seeing beyond the facade, but a blind man could have seen through her in that moment. Without his ears, he still would've heard her loud and clear. Emma was lying.

"Yeah," he settled for. "But it doesn't make what I said mean any less, you deserve a better life. What if I left Portland tomorrow? Would you be in a place to take care of yourself?"

The idea unnerved her, and for a moment he saw an expression of alarm cross her features as she considered the possibility of truly being on her own again. Her words, however, didn't betray her as much as the rest of her had. "I've got it figured out."

It was another lie he let her keep because it was another lie he needed to believe as well.

"Are you… going somewhere?" Emma asked, not as sly as she thought she was. "I thought you were looking for that girl."

"Not so sure she needs me anymore."

She was silent on the matter.

"Look… I'm not sure where we are on all of this. I'm not even sure where I'm comfortable being based on how old you actually are—but if you want to stay…" August extended a hand across the table, palm open up and vulnerable. "That's still there." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.

Emma stared at the proffered hand, and it was hard to imagine the intimacy that had once existed between them based on how far apart they'd fallen in less than twenty four hours. Rewind a day and she'd have been smiling, laughing with August all too eager to return that easy contentment. Now they circled one another like wounded animals, afraid to let their guard down and be taken out in the end.

A moment of kindness came, drawing Emma with it. She placed her hand into his, their fingers curling up together. "Thank you."

—

Two days later, it wasn't the alarm that woke August in the morning, but a _tapping._ An incessant, irregular tapping. Once and then twice, a pause, and then a repeat of the staccato. He thought he'd been dreaming it at first, the sound invading the endings of a less than pleasant dream as the drumming of a woodpecker's beak, but then he'd awoken and it had still been there. Just _louder_.

Groggy, he barely made it to his feet, too tired to even bother with his usual routine of keeping quiet for Emma's sake as she slept, and blindly tried to follow the noise. Tap-tap. To his right. It was coming from outside of the room, of that he was sure as he approached the front wall of the hotel room. He drew the curtain, peeking on out to the parking lot. It was just after sunrise, and for a second he allowed himself to enjoy the sight.

Tap-tap.

There was nothing he could see from the window, no person, no creature, no branch of a tree brushing against the glass with a gust of wind. No tiny cricket spouting off about making wise decisions.

Tap-tap.

The sound originated slightly more to the left, and raising a brow, August eyed the door that stood locked. He slid the chain from the lock, released the deadbolt, and slowly, carefully, opened the door. There was nothing there.

Tap-tap.

August looked down.

A pigeon pushed its way into the gap in the open doorway, strutting around, circling at August's feet.

He knew what it was; it's arrival wasn't unexpected, but that didn't make it any less startling to see a pigeon, of all things, inviting itself in and making itself at home. On the bed, Emma remained motionless and asleep, even as the bird let out a coo, desperate for August's attention.

Never had he been much of a bird enthusiast—cats had always been more of his preference—so he approached the bird with a skeptical caution, settling down on one knee before it. The bird's beady black eyes regarded him knowingly, an eerily uncomfortable chill running down his spine as its head cocked in his direction and then simply lifted one of its legs.

Bound about it was a small vial, mercifully still intact, and from what August could see, just as full with the cloudy water as the day it had left Storybrooke. August reached a hesitant hand towards the pigeon's leg, deft fingers gently easing the bottle from where it had been fastened, and just when it came free, the bird lunged, pecking and biting at his hand.

"Son of a—!" He shouted, drawing his hand to his chest even if it was just a scratch. The bird though, by time August had managed to assess how little damage had been done, had scuttled himself back from whence he came, and without so much a shake of his tail feather as a goodbye, took to the skies once again. August nudged the door shut, if only to reassure himself it wouldn't come back for another bite.

"August…?" Emma asked from the bed, eyes still shut, head lifted barely from her pillow.

"Stubbed my toe," he quickly lied, concealing the vial in hand as he stood up and crossed the room. "Go back to sleep."

His heart was racing by time he made it to the bathroom, setting the vial down on the countertop. He couldn't get far enough away from it and so August took a much needed seat on the edge of the bath tub, never taking his eyes off of at the inanimate object.

He hadn't been sure of the idea the night he'd been told what to do, and as the days had gone by, he'd only grown more worrisome. All of it, it felt _wrong_, and yet he'd been told it was the opposite: the right thing, and furthermore, the only shot at getting it all set on the correct path once again.

"_There's no magic here," August argued into the phone._

"_There isn't, not any native to this land at least," Blue said mournfully, "but in what little time I'd had to prepare for the curse, I was been able to bring a few things through with me. There's still magic in them, and from that… I'll make what you need."_

_Tears again filled his eyes and this time he made no effort to wipe them away or conceal the tremor they brought to his voice. "She won't forgive me for this."_

"_You'll have to pray that someday she'll understand, Pinocchio. That you had to do it to save everyone else."_

"_What if it doesn't work?"_

"_It will. Now when you get it, you'll need a strand of her hair…"_

The hairbrush that had started all of this stared at him menacingly from beside the sink, as though it were a living, breathing thing that had acted with malice all those days before. Had it been coincidence or fate?

August pushed himself up and went for the brush, unwinding a single strand of blonde hair from the bristles. He popped the cork from the vial and with a delicate hand, fed the strand into the bottle and watched it dissolve.

—

That night, Emma and August fell into the routine that had befallen them over the last few days. It was very much like the life they'd lived before—before he knew who she was, before she'd spoken of her past, before the lies between them had been aired out in the open—except quieter, and despite the fact that they shared a motel room, it was surprisingly lonely.

There were moments when things seemed just as they'd once been, like when Emma would look his way with a coy smile and he couldn't do anything but return it, or the hour earlier when he'd asked her to go for a ride with him and enjoy the unprecedented dry spell that continued in Portland for its second week. She'd been apprehensive in answering, almost like she believed it to be a trick of some kind, but when they'd ended up on that bike with her arms around him, it had been like nothing had gone wrong at all. August hadn't wanted to take them home, but from behind him Emma had bemoaned how cold her hands felt with the wind whipping on by, and once or twice he'd even felt her grip gradually loosen as the rumbling engine of the bike lulled her into sleep.

She was all smiles when they returned, and as always when he saw her with that expression, so was he. It was that kind of delirious happiness, something he knew he didn't deserve, but in the meantime allowed himself to have. It wouldn't last much longer.

The rest of the night passed just as peacefully, and though Emma was none the wiser, August hadn't been able to keep his eyes from her. Even the mundane seemed important to remember, like the way she unbound her hair from the braid as she prepared for sleep, the hair tie chewed between teeth and lips as she finished shaking out the twists and knots. He wanted—no, needed—to commit it to memory.

She slid into bed beside him not long after, and while the last few nights it had been done with a solemness, both sides taking great care not to tread over the imaginary boundary between them, this time Emma turned herself in towards him as she laid on her side. Even so, she straddled that invisible line that ran down the middle. August caught her in the corner of his eye as he mimed the action of reading the book in his lap.

"You okay?"

"Tonight felt…" Emma began, then drew her brows together, "good."

August smiled and cast his book aside onto his nightstand, and let his body slide down into bed until he, too, was lying down, a mirror image of her in position. "Good," he echoed. "It was good, wasn't it?"

Emma laughed to herself, squinting behind her glasses, but it died down soon enough. "I really am sorry."

He didn't think, just acted, crossing no-man's land between them to lay a kiss to the skin between her eyebrows while a hand got lost in her hair. Under his touch, August felt her relax and heard her release the deepest of content sighs. "It's alright."

She didn't let him get far from her, not even back to his side of the bed before Emma had done just as he had, abandoning their unspoken rules as she leaned in and touched their mouths together for the first time in days. For the first time since he knew her real name. August didn't even try to fight it—he didn't want to. It was soft, it was slow, and yet it held every ounce of heat and desire she'd shown him before.

August pushed her onto her back, their chests pressed together as he took place above her, no longer content to let her take the lead. Like he had to remember the way she towel dried her hair or the way she hummed as she brushed her teeth, he had to save this as well, to call on when he had nothing else. Emma's hand gripped into his hair and scalp, keeping him close.

Though she was unyielding, finally did she have to release him, if only to allow them to catch their breath, lungs desperate in their fight for oxygen. August dropped his forehead to hers, their noses aligned as he breathed her in.

"I missed you," Emma whispered, and shifted just enough to kiss his cheek, his jaw, his forehead.

August basked in her attention, hardly breathing. "I missed you." He kissed her cheek. I miss you. Her jaw. I'll miss you. Her forehead.

He pulled away, suddenly sitting up. "Do you want a glass of water?"

Emma licked her lips, testing the dryness of her mouth. "Please."

With a nod, he reluctantly stood, and headed for the bathroom. A plastic cup stood by the bathroom sink and August filled it halfway from the tap, then crouched down before the counter, stretching his arm out underneath. Between where the wood of the countertop unevenly met the wall, he freed the small vial from where it had been wedged, and in the next move, stood back up and poured its contents into the cup. He didn't let himself stop, not even hesitate, for August knew that if he took an extra moment just to breathe, he wouldn't go through with it at all.

Emma accepted the cup with a murmur of thanks, downing the water like she'd crossed the desert without a drop to drink, and then handed the cup back to him to set on the nightstand.

"You're worth so much," August said, sitting beside her once more. His words felt rushed, an imagined clock ticking in the back of his head. "Do you understand that?"

"When you say it like that, I almost believe it."

"You should," he argued, and leaned back down, kissing her forehead, her hair, her face, anywhere he could get. "It's never too late to start new."

"Where's all this coming from?"

"Nowhere… I just want to make sure you believe it."

Emma stopped him, her hand to his cheek. "You can remind me tomorrow then, I'm tired."

Another minute, another hour—that's what he needed. August let his palm rest over hers, turning his head in to kiss her wrist. "I care about you. Don't forget. Somewhere in you…" he said pleadingly, though trying to keep the panic from his voice as her eyes drifted shut, sleep calling to her. "Remember that. Someone cares about you."

It wasn't death, but still it felt as though he was watching her go, and August knew immediately, was finally _certain_ of it now… he'd done the wrong thing. He wanted to take it back, suck the magic out of her lungs, somehow make himself the savior of that curse so she needn't suffer under the weight.

"_Her mother took a potion like this long ago, to forget about her prince. She'll forget you, forget what happened between you, and when she needs you to make her believe, you'll have a clean slate."_

"_If I knew this was what you'd have me do when I called, I wouldn't have."_

"_It has to go right this time. Make sure she stays out of trouble, gets her life back on track, let her grow up."_

"_Is there enough for me, to make me forget?"_

"_I wish I could let you, Pinocchio, but you know I can't. Listen to me, don't repeat what already happened, or all the magic I have left will have been wasted for nothing."_

August blinked through the unshed tears as he slipped the glasses from her eyes, folding up the arms and then setting them on the bedside table next to the cup he'd given her not five minutes earlier. He didn't bother with the lights, couldn't bear to leave her side, and simply laid back down in the bed beside her. He watched her sleep until he could fight his own exhaustion off any more, and he, too, joined Emma in slumber.

—

It wasn't quite morning when he woke, and for once August climbed out of bed without lingering. There was too much to be done, and should he not accomplish it all before it was too late, he didn't want to imagine the consequences.

The bathroom was first cleared of all reminders that he'd ever existed at all, then the closet and drawers, working systematically through the rented space. Every item of clothing, every knick knack, was slid away into the solitary bag he owned, dressing himself in the process. A shirt, his jeans, his belt and that damn buckle that stood out like a sore thumb.

Outside, he secured his belongings to his bike after first lashing the wooden box to the storage rack on back, and then returned to the motel room for a final survey. It was still well lived in, especially with Emma's things strewn about, but to him, it was empty. She'd wake in a few hours, he knew, and nothing would be amiss, not the missing tooth brush from the bathroom counter, not the absent wooden box from the corner of the room, not the empty spot in the bed beside her.

Her purse was settled on the lone chair in the room, and August sifted through it for her wallet, folding it open to expose where her cash was house. It was woefully sparse, and so August reached for his own wallet, taking from his own stash what little he could afford. It wasn't much, not with what he knew he would need to fill up his tank, keep an emergency fund, and settle his bill at the front office, but it was something, and he hoped, it would be enough to keep her on her feet. August slipped the wallet back into her purse, and when he did so, his fingers caught on beaded leather cord—one of the bracelet's she'd crafted herself.

He didn't think, just took it and slid it onto his wrist, and then turned back to look at where Emma slept. Though he knew he shouldn't, he couldn't resist. August kissed her forehead once before severing the physical connection entirely for the last time.

"Take care, Emma," he whispered.

Before he could lose his momentum, August headed for the door, locking her in. He headed for the main office.

"Checking out?" An older gentleman asked from behind the desk.

"Yeah. A girl's going to drop her key off later—she'll be out by check out time."

The man raised a brow then offered August a leering grin. "She's not going to be a problem when she wakes up alone? We get all manner of disgruntled women 'round here…"

"No," August cut in, head bowed as he counted out what was owed and then slid it across the counter. "That should cover it."

He didn't bother with an exchange of goodbye with the stranger, and simply bade his farewell to return to his bike.

August followed the road out of Portland, a sky of clouds covering the sun as he sat on that cliff overlooking the ocean he had shared with Emma not so long ago. It felt like a lifetime before. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed the number of the motel room.

It took awhile, but the tired, rusty voice of Emma answered. "Yeah?"

"This is your nine AM wake up call," he said. The ocean waves rolled in and back out, lapping at the rocks down below. "Check out is at 11AM. Please drop your key off at the front desk, you settled your bill last night."

"Huh? Oh, okay. Thanks."

The line went dead. August watched the ocean on his own, just as it had always been. Overhead, thunder rumbled, lightning cracked, and for the first time in two weeks, it began to rain.


	4. Chapter 4

August had stayed out on that cliff for hours, long past when he'd been soaked in rainwater down to the bone. It hadn't been a conscious thought at the time, but when he looked back on it, he would have had to admit he was waiting for something. A sign, perhaps. A cleansing of his soul and misdeeds, more likely.

It didn't surprise him when he turned up empty-handed.

By time he'd made it back to the motel that afternoon, Emma was gone, the door open wide as a cleaning cart obstructed the entranceway itself while a maid pulled out clean linens to replace the old. There was no sign of her, not even as he circled the nearby blocks on the back of his motorcycle, looking for her though he feared what he might do if he did cross her path.

In the end, it didn't stop him from expecting to see her around every corner whether he knew it or not, and two days later in mid-afternoon with the sun shining bright again, August saw her once more.

And she was jimmying open an old Volkswagen bug.

Emma acted with a grace and familiarity, evident even from afar, and August had the sinking feeling that despite the details of her life she'd come clean with over their last few days together, Emma was just about as good at being honest as he was. He knew absolutely nothing about that girl, and that particular fact, was the hardest to swallow. That was, until he'd seen the way she clung to the new stranger in her life.

The sourness of his stomach hadn't been an immediate reaction to the anonymous man, but rather a slow build up, exponentially increasing as time had passed. What August had done for Emma—or _to_ Emma as he pitifully argued with himself on particularly miserable days—had been for her own good, and August had to wonder if this man wasn't the price that came with the magic he'd used. This man, Neal Cassady—as he'd learned his name from the same poster that held the details of his unsavory past—would ruin her.

It was that mantra that propelled August in chase of Neal down a street and through an alleyway, even gave him that flow of adrenaline he needed when he pulled Neal off the fence and threw him to the ground.

"You want to protect Emma?" He said over the sounds of Neal's struggling. "Then come with me."

"How do you know Emma?" Neal shouted.

Exhaustion burned behind August's eyes, only outweighed by the hunger pangs that had become a constant companion in the time since he had bid Emma goodbye. That steady life he'd built in Portland had quickly fallen apart since then, each vital piece pulling another with it. Fatigue had him spouting off some line about a guardian angel, words that barely made sense as they left his lips, especially considering the circumstances.

Neal only reconfirmed what he already felt.

"This world—full of temptations," and though he could make a list a mile long of every temptation he'd ever succumbed to or wanted to, he thought only of Emma. "Turns out I'm not that great at saying no." As he spoke, August became aware of a strange undercurrent of something that ran straight through him, growing more insistent and impossible to ignore. "But I'm here now."

"So _who_ are you?"

"We were in the same home as kids," he confessed, and other than what little he'd said to Emma herself about the girl he was searching for, it was the first time he'd allowed himself to speak aloud about what he'd done seventeen years earlier. "I thought she'd be safe inside the system, but now that she's out…" That unknown sensation again nagged at him, skin crawling. "I promised I'd take care of her."

Neal leaned in, head held high, the image of bravery August had so often wished he'd possessed in his life. "We promised to take care of each other."

For the moment, all else was drowned out by the revelation laid out before him. He hadn't wanted to see it, hadn't chosen to see it before out of some desperate self-preservation mechanism, but there was no denial of it now. His brow crinkled and jaw stiffened, lips parted as his body felt more wooden than it ever had since he'd actually been that animated puppet. He spoke wish a hushed voice. "You love her?"

It was jealousy that he knew he hadn't exactly earned the right to have in the first place. Jealousy not because he loved her in such a way or had thought—before or after things had gone so far to shit between them—that she might have loved him, but because now that chance of ever knowing _if_ it could be possible at all had been taken from him. In fact… he had taken it from himself.

"Good," he said, "that means you have to do right by her."

Neal's gaze was unwavering. "That's what I'm tying to do."

"Then _leave_ her." August saw his own face in Neal's as he spoke, talking of that destiny Emma had following her around. It had been him in his place only a week or two before, listening to the fairy turned nun—the embodiment of what he'd always known to be the pinnacle of all that was just and good—tell him why he had to do what felt unbearable. Now… now it was August's turn to pass that message on to someone else that was so incredibly like himself: wayward, lost, and only dragging Emma down along with him.

August felt his tentative grasp on Neal slip away with the expression of doubt the man wore, and just when he feared it was too late, that hum that vibrated through him like never before came back to the forefront of his senses. It made August take a sudden, figurative leap. He cocked his head to the side. "Do you believe in magic?"

The stranger looked away, and August knew that gut feeling had been right. Neal seeing the true contents of the wooden box only further proved it, and though August had a million questions like _how_ and _why _and _who the hell are you really_, he only wasted his breath on telling Neal of the story he'd rehearsed in his head for the last seventeen years.

A boy and a baby. A tree and a wardrobe. A curse to be broken and only one capable of doing it.

Telling that story was cathartic.

"She needs to be scared straight," August said, hands to the seat of his bike as he leaned forward against it for support, head hanging. "Nothing else is going to convince her to pull herself out of this life before its too late."

Neal sighed loudly where he stood. "If I just sell these… me and her were gonna start over. New names, new lives—do it right."

"And what happens when that money runs out? What happens when one of you gets sick or the car breaks down or someone finds out who you two really are or—_anything_," he said exasperatedly. "When you have nothing else, what then? You'll both go back to robbing convenience stores and stealing cars."

"I wouldn't let—"

"It'll be the easy thing to do." August swallowed hard, speaking from experience. "And it'll keep going until one or both of you _does_ get caught. Only it'll be worse—because then she'll be an adult and she'll be trading on a fake name. She'll waste a decade of her life rotting in jail and the curse will never get broken. And that—all of that will be on you."

The man paced on the other side of the motorcycle, scrubbing a hand over his jaw and then through his hair, deep in thought.

"If you really do love her… then you need to give her the chance to be better than this. Better than us."

Neal stilled, and then lifted his head to meet August's eyes, resignation apparent. "What do I do?"

"Find a pay phone. Make a phone call. And then… disappear."

—

The weeks weren't kind to him, to say the least. On a lark, he'd made the decision to follow Emma down to Phoenix; it had been an ill-conceived trip, one destined to fail from the start and August had made it as far as small ski resort town in northern California when his bike had refused to go any further.

Work would be hard to find there especially in the off season, the hills barren of snow and town near abandoned without the tourists to fill up the streets and stores, and it was with a heavy heart that August had to silently acknowledge that he was not a stranger to the desperate choice between paying for a place to sleep or paying for dinner. He'd had enough cash when he'd left Portland to make it to Phoenix if he rode solid ten hour days and ate light; if there was a cheap enough motel he might have even been able to afford a bed to rest his head at night instead of sleeping beside his bike and hoping the local animals didn't get too curious. He'd had enough to get to Phoenix, he was sure of it, but not enough for anything else.

While the town was something of a curse, it also served as a blessing with the number of vacation homes that circled the edge of the town proper, nestled into the woods. They were isolated, remote, and most importantly, _empty_. He warred with himself for some time that first day there—his feet and back aching from pushing the dead motorcycle on forward—about the rights and wrongs of the situation and whether his desperate need for shelter outweighed the rights the homeowner had, and as much as it pained him to, he made the obvious choice as the sun began to set.

He chose a smaller house, one that seemed less likely to be armed with an alarm system, and was far enough removed from the roadside and neighbors as to not draw any attention to himself. It helped that the house looked as though it had been vacated for sometime, no doubt closed up for the season until more ideal weather hit, and as August pushed his bike up the driveway and tucked it around back, he made a silent prayer to whatever deity was listening that he wasn't found out. He had been, of course, a number of times in the past. Squatting was the official term for it, but usually he'd had a working vehicle back then which made for a quick getaway when need be. This time he would have to play it smart.

The backdoor of the home was easy enough to pick, a skill he'd honed in his youth and practiced this time with lingering guilt even as the locking mechanism gave way. A quick check of the kitchen faucet in the cabin told him the water had been turned off and a flick of the light switch likewise confirmed a similar story. They were only temporary setbacks however, as in the garage he found both the circuit breaker and the main water valve, and though it would leave evidence that he'd been there at all, August would be long gone by time the homeowner got a bill for the utilities.

The fridge was warm and empty, no surprise there, but the cupboards were another story. For someone that had lived out of a motel room for the last month, the cabinets were a veritable goldmine and August wasted no time in tearing through the first things that caught his eye. His hunger, as it turned out, negated the guilt that returned when his stomach was full. It was a feast of canned soup and vegetables, and just because for the first time in so long he _could_, August took to using the stove instead of a microwave. It was about as close to home cooking as he'd had in a long time, and god it tasted good.

Non-perishables weren't been the only supplies stocked and it didn't taken August more than an hour past dusk to find the liquor cabinet. He fell asleep that night with a belly of cut green beans and the most expensive whiskey he ever had. It was a good night, one without dreams.

The parts he needed, they said, would take a week to get there. It took just over that much time for August to scrape the money together from odd jobs here and there, and a few days more spent with his nose in instructional manuals at the local library learning how to do the repairs _right_. It was time to finally go, the cabinets picked through of food and alcohol, but the cabin provided a familiarity—the illusion of putting down roots—he couldn't bear to leave.

Another week and dinner meant picking out the black specks of dead beetles from an old box of pancake mix found in the back of the pantry, mixing up the powder with water and pouring out the batter into a frying pan. There was no butter or syrup to be had with it and they were impossibly dry, but there was coffee—black—with filters made of folded paper towel. For awhile, he convinced himself that life of barely subsisting at all was enough, unwilling to admit to even himself that his reluctance to go was also a reluctance to have to face where he'd been responsible in sending Emma.

It was _right_, he fed himself the line repeatedly late at night, the only sound in the cabin a small radio he'd found in a closet. It was right. It was what Emma needed and when she emerged from it all perhaps it would be like a caterpillar undergoing a metamorphosis, climbing out from its shell changed and whole and brand new. He wanted to believe it, not just for her sake, but because he wanted to believe that maybe there would come a day for him when he would too be able to leave the past behind and start over. Never too late to start new, he'd said to her, and August did believe it, truthfully, wholeheartedly… just not when it came to himself.

Yeah, it was the right thing.

Come morning, August was feeding nickels into a photocopier in what looked as though it had once been a dining room before the home had been repurposed into a library. It seemed prudent to keep a copy of the more complicated repairs in the service manual he'd dug up there, and so the minutes passed along with his change, flipping the book's pages, settling the top down, and pressing print as another piece of paper hot to the touch was spit out the other end of the copier.

Down the center of the room was a lengthy folding table to replace where the dining table had likely once been, a stark contrast to the otherwise quaint and intricate craftsmanship of the home, and upon that table computers lined up in a row. An elderly man, one August had seen milling about the library before at a similarly early hour, stood from the seat he'd occupied long before August had even arrived, pulling on his coat and leaving the empty room behind.

August watched him go, letting out a deep breath at that feeling of finally being alone, though he suspected the man wouldn't have even known of his presence if it hadn't been for that steady, almost rhythmic sound of the photocopier churning out page after page. Just as he was about to turn back to his work, however, August's eyes lingered on the computer screen that had been previously in use, and how unlike all the other computers that sat in various states of dormancy, this one was not loaded back to the generic log on screen asking for a library cardholder's information.

He gathered the book and copied pages from the machine quickly, rushing to the computer that offered a lifeline to the outside world. August sank into the seat, and without even a second consideration, brought up the homepage search engine. _Phoenix news_, he typed, and though he didn't know exactly what he was searching for, he took a gamble on the first return, a website for a conglomerate of newspapers servicing various points of Arizona, including Phoenix.

The website was barebones at best, featuring weather and headline news local to the area, all of which was of little importance compared to what he sought out. He tried specifying his search, with keywords like _theft _and _robbery_ which yielded too much to easily sort through and _Emma Swan_ which delivered nothing. On a hunch, he tried one more search, _Neal Cassady_, and it was, as they sometimes said, _the magic word_. Open sesame.

There were a few articles archived regarding the thief and his unknown whereabouts, but what was most important was the article most recently written only—he checked the date near the clock on the computer's toolbar, Christ, had he wasted _that_ much time in this shitty little town?—two days before the current.

Nowhere in the article did he find Emma's name, but instinctually he knew to whom the author referred. The anonymity meant she'd been tried as a minor then, and not an adult, which was a small mercy in itself. The details of the theft were laid out, especially noting how Neal Cassady was still at large but the unnamed accomplice had struck a plea deal in exchange for any information as to his whereabouts. She'd gotten eleven months in a minimum security women's prison, and would be comped for time already served.

It was a short piece, nothing more than a few facts without the usual flowery content of bigger drawing articles, and though August couldn't have expected more from it, he was left unsatisfied.

How _was_ she? The last he'd seen of her had been from a distance as she was cuffed and pushed into the back of a police car, and that solemn expression of abandonment and betrayal had stung him somewhere deep. It was the right thing to do for her, and yet it didn't feel right. He thought back to some of the last words his father had said to him: that sometimes you must lie to protect the ones you love; It wasn't exactly the same situation, Emma was guilty in a technical sense even if Neal was the one who deserved to be behind bars instead, but it was the same idea. Sometimes you had to make the hard choice, even if it wasn't what someone may have thought they wanted.

August sat back in his seat, vision out of focus. Against his thigh, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and August pulled it out, looking to the outer screen. It was a phone kept mostly for emergencies and necessity, and barring a phone call from someone he was regularly working under, it simply did not ring. He didn't recognize the number, nor the area code that read on it, but just as August was about to let the call go unanswered, he took a glance back to the computer screen. He had a vision of Emma on her own, making a phone call from the prison where she was kept.

He flipped the phone open and put it to his ear.

"August?"

It was at that moment that he remembered that Emma had no reason to remember his number… or him, at all.

August scooped the Indian Chief service manual from the table, leaving the photocopies behind as he violently shoved the book into the breast of his buttoned jacket and made haste out of the library, back onto the town's streets and headed in the direction of the cabin.

"August, man, you there?"

"Yeah." He said breathlessly, fatigue suddenly hitting him just as the cool air did.

"I'm in Vancouver," Neal said from a thousand miles away. "Can we meet?"

—

That money was going to burn a whole in his pocket, he was sure of it. If he let his imagination run wild enough, August swore he could even feel it beginning to heat up, ready to spontaneously combust and taking him out with it. A similar nightmare from his childhood as a wooden boy often sprang to mind.

August had never seen that much money at once before, at least not in real life and off of a movie screen or television set. Sums of money like that—twenty grand give or take a couple hundred in either direction—didn't just _fall_ into people's laps, certainly not people like him. He'd held a couple thousand a few times, though on those occasions the money hadn't exactly belonged to him, he was merely a somewhat trusted go-between for bigger players in a business he'd never been devoted to. Even when he'd bought that bike of his—rusted out and in horrid disrepair, a sight that had hurt him what with such a beautiful bike it _could_ be and once had been—August hadn't held more than a small wad of bills in various denominations before he'd handed over what equated to his life savings. Twenty thousand dollars… it would be his undoing.

He knew what he _ought_ to do, of course: drive that car down to Phoenix; change its oil and otherwise prep the VW bug for sitting unused during the remaining nine months of Emma's sentence; acquire a safety deposit box for the money that remained and send the information to her. But what August ought to do and what he was inclined to do—those were two very different things.

A hotel room came first—one with clean sheets and indoor hallways, someone at the front desk that called themselves the concierge—and he took to hiding away most of the cash in the in-room safe. It wasn't exactly the best idea, but it was enough for the night and was at least safer than carrying it around on his person. He showered immediately, the water so hot it felt as though it had sloughed off the top layers of his skin as well as the last weeks, months, years of dirt, silt, and guilt that was caked into his every pore. And before he could stop moving and have to _think_, August was out of the hotel just as fast, looking for anything—or anyone—to occupy his mind and body for the night.

It wasn't difficult to find what he needed, especially while a couple hundred dollars in cash burned in the breast pocket of his jacket, begging to be spent, and spend it he did, covering rounds for anyone at the bar that looked his way.

August couldn't remember the girl's name the moment after she first said it, just the hard sound of a consonant as the first letter, and so he took to calling the dark haired stranger sweet murmurs of affection as compensation. It was enough for both of them under the heavy guise of alcohol, more than enough to get them back to his hotel room and for the night to proceed just as he'd intended.

It was good in a physical sense—always was with few rare exceptions—but when the woman beside him curled in closer afterward, there was only a deeply ingrained instinct to pull away. He stood without hesitation and crossed the room to his discarded clothing, pulling from a pocket a wrinkled canadian bill, and then returned to where she laid.

"Should be enough for a cab," he said, his subtlety gone as he tucked the money into her hand. She lifted her head for a kiss despite the brush off but August dodged it, instead dropping his lips to her forehead, barely touching her skin. "I had a great time."

It was a kindness that the girl put up no argument, having known what she was getting into before following him back, although he suspected she might have appreciated staying the night.

The door slammed shut behind her and August was already out on the small balcony that overlooked the rest of the city. The view wasn't great: mostly buildings nearby that were just as tall, but if he angled himself just right he could catch a slice of the distant waterfront. Wind came in with the currents and it was almost briny, a slightly different scent than he'd taken in on the east coast, and the somewhat sticky humidity of the day clung to his skin much like the lingering hints of the woman who had just left him behind.

August sighed and leaned over the railing, slouched and shoulders hunched as his weight rested upon his elbows. From up above, the world seemed quiet and simple, and just as he always did, he felt absolutely and completely disconnected, like a boy—not a man—straddling both worlds with not a place for him made in either. An anomaly, an outcast, something that never really belonged anywhere to start with.

A height of that magnitude above the street level gave him the same uncomfortable response that the ocean had in the past on the lonelier, more despairing nights. It would have been easy, he'd thought far too many times to recall, to slip off the edge of the schooner he'd found temporary work upon and sink down into the depthless black ocean bottom, ending it all. Selfishly, it wasn't the thought of the cursed town or his father that had kept him from ever doing so, but the fear of what came _after_. Did a boy like him, one carved from wood, have a soul? Was there an afterlife that would take him in? Or would there just be nothingness that waited for him as he ceased to have ever existed at all?

…Would anyone have even noticed he was gone?

Another salty breeze rolled in off the bay and it reminded him of that cliff back in Oregon—not of the time he'd sat there alone but rather the first occurrence, with Emma by his side. More specifically, he thought of his plans he'd told her of traveling and seeing the world, breaking the cycle his life had fallen victim to.

He turned back and stepped into the bedroom through the balcony's sliding glass door. At the other side of the room in the open closet, August's eyes settled on the locked safe.

—

Phuket was meant to be temporary—while still an _escape_—but a retreat measured in weeks instead of months. He'd arrived with the hopes that it would be a trip based in the vastly unfamiliar, a place to clear his head and come to terms with not just the last weeks stateside, but the rest of his life. Maybe there'd be something in the water there that would wash away his sins just as he'd similarly hoped the rain would do to him every time grey clouds overhead opened up. It never worked, at least not so far, but that didn't mean that the quick fix wasn't coming someday, somewhere, however far down the line. He needed it to be that simple.

What he hadn't counted on was that Phuket would grow to be more like a home than almost anywhere else had felt in the last couple of years, and it wasn't just couches he crashed on or temporary shelter taken in by-the-week rentals. He'd found a studio shortly after his arrival, a small space that had come furnished and included a kitchenette and a ceiling fan generously called _air-conditioning_. It was muggy as the hottest circle of hell when it was humid, almost unbearably so, but it was on a corner two floors above street level and when the windows were opened, the cross-breeze that came through the place was downright heavenly.

August had also found the steadiest work he'd had his whole life, a lucky little job working with a couple of entrepreneuring ex-pats in ownership of a few boats that shuttled tourists about the nearby waters to the sweetest snorkeling spots. The pay was good for the hours, the water clear and beautiful, and every so often if he played his cards just right, there was a girl on holiday or an older woman looking to let go of her inhibitions on vacation. A twenty-five year old from Kansas, for some reason, seemed to be the perfect balance between risk and reasonably safe in the grand scheme of things.

He dared to even say he'd made friends, not that he had anyone to say that to, but nonetheless it was a spot of pride for him. August had something for himself there, and it was almost enough to do as he'd intended: drown out the thought of the lives he'd lived before and the obligations that otherwise loomed in the distance awaiting him. If he didn't think about it too much, despite it all… he may have even been happy. Relative happiness, at the very least, even if it had taken longer than he'd anticipated.

Some nights he thought of the motorcycle he'd left behind in a storage unit in Vancouver before he'd driven the yellow Volkswagen to Phoenix, a couple bills left in the glove compartment to at least afford Emma a few tanks of gas so she could get the hell out of Dodge once her sentencing was up. He missed that bike, the way it vibrated between his legs and the roaring sound it had as it came to life, but it would have been out of place here surrounded by tiny dented cars and rickety scooters that would have long since been out of commission due to safety risks back home. But that bike, it would be waiting for him when he got back, if he ever did—though that idea was much too tantalizing to let himself really consider.

The afternoon rain had ended the day's last planned excursion slightly ahead of schedule, and as lightning flashed overhead and thunder cracked mere seconds later, August was comforted in the thought that he'd been right to make the call to fish those snorkeling tourists out of the water early to get them back to shore before the water grew too rough. On land, the storm didn't seem quite so bad, not only because there was solid ground beneath his feet, but because it gave the local eateries and bars a sense of coziness as the usually opened doors and windows were battened down to protect property and patrons alike, to say nothing of the fact that these places were also far more packed than ever as everyone tried to hide out from the rain. There was camaraderie in it, a room full of rain soaked people drinking to their hearts' content and not thinking about what came next. In other words, it was his ideal kind of experience.

The bar itself felt as though it was alive, like it had taken on the energy of its occupants, turning itself from inanimate to a living, breathing thing. Laughter echoed off the walls, the chatter loud and raucous, complete with a scent of sweat and alcohol and the slowly dissipating smell of food vendors that had once been outside in happier weather. The woman at August's right laughed at something another said and then stroked her hand along the length of his forearm, the slyest of glances given as she coyly smiled in his direction for only a moment.

That look in and of itself was an accurate representation of their relationship—August always waiting for more and the woman never quite giving enough, their relationship, or lack thereof, still in infancy. Michele had been one of the first people he'd met months ago, a native from the south of France looking to get away. He never asked about what she was running from and in return, she never asked him. It was a comforting falsehood built on insecurity and half-truths, but from the dimly lit bar it was just as bit as enticing as something more sincere.

Michele leaned back into him over the arm of her chair, a peck left to his cheek. "Let's take our leave," she said, but for all the other volume in the room, it felt like a whisper. Her hand sought his out, fingers lacing together as she squeezed.

August's brow quirked followed by a squint to his eyes as he mulled over the hidden meaning of her words. "You sure?"

"Are you saying no?" She smiled as she asked, all the while beginning to stand as she pushed her chair out, leading him by their still linked limbs. "Doesn't sound like the man I know you to be to say _no_."

In a more sober mood the words might have stung, but August only saw Michele, dark hair and light eyes, her skin golden from the sun, and just how much he'd wanted this, wanted _her_ for the last half a year. He followed like any boy would.

It was still drizzling when they hit the streets and in contrast to the usual late nights of street vendors and crowds milling about not yet wanting to go to sleep, the narrow roadway was abandoned. Michele paid no mind to the rain drops as they fell, and instead of trying to duck under awnings and overhangs of old architecture, she pulled him by the hand out into the middle of the street to continue their slow pace. August let his arm slip around her to her other side, hand at her waist to keep her close.

He wished he hadn't drunk so much, wished he'd be able to remember the rapid beating of his heart and the pressure in his groin with greater clarity in the morning, but there were no circumstances in which he was ready to tell her 'No,' or 'wait,' or 'perhaps another time.' Especially not as she leaned in close, kissing the skin below his ear, her hand settled on his backside at the waistband of his shorts.

"Mmm," he hummed as her fingers slid up under the hem of his shirt, making skin to skin contact. "Keep going—ow, what the fuck!" His encouragement ended early as he felt something scratch along his scalp, and he instead instinctively jerked away from her, ducking his head down. August swept a palm over the crown of his head. "What in the hell—"

Michele laughed, waving a hand in the direction of the night sky. A bird of some sort—was it a bat? Jesus Christ, after everything else, was he going to end up dying of rabies from some indigenous bat?—flew erratically above them.

"He likes you," she said through her wheezing laughter, accent so thick her words were barely intelligible at all.

"Go away!" August shouted to the sky, but it only further fueled the bird as it swooped down at him again and had he been half a second slower, the claws would've once again been dragging over his skin. "Leave me alone you stupid—stupid—" his words failed him and he was left yelling in the night like a small child with a limited vocabulary with the anger and indignation of the twenty-five year old he was, "_bird_!" Not his finest hour.

It made a third attempt, wings opened wide and fluttering rapidly at August, as though it was trying to scare him off, or maybe just attract his attention. August drew his arms up to protect his face but a moment later the bird stopped, and when he hesitantly opened his eyes, it was sitting on the pavement in front of him, beady black eyes blinking up at him like nothing was ever amiss. But it wasn't the possible future repeated threat of the bird that left August's mouth gaping, instead it was the bird itself.

A god damned pigeon.

"August…?" Michele cautiously called to him as he was locked into a staring contest with the bird. "Are you alright?"

He barely heard her, instead unable to pull his attention away from the pigeon as it cooed, head jerking before strutting half a foot closer to him. With careful balance, it lifted one of its legs, and that was when August saw it: a small coil of paper fastened to the bird's ankle.

Everything he'd ever been avoiding came crashing back at him and before he knew what he was doing, August dropped to a knee, freeing the bird of the burden of the message it carried.

"Did you—" Michele mumbled something in french, a language of which he still only knew very few words, but it distinctly sounded like a curse. "Mon Dieu, was there something _on_ that bird?" She asked, incredulous.

August didn't know how to respond, unfurling the paper until its message was revealed.

_Come home, Pinocchio._

He blanched, stomach queasy, and shoved the paper in his pocket. The bird took off and in the same moment, Michele touched his shoulder hesitantly.

"August—"

"I—I have to go," he said quickly as he stood back up.

"Mais—"

"Désolé," August repeated his apologies and took both of her hands in his. "I'm sorry."

Before her thoughts could be made verbal, he pulled away, turning back to head in the direction of his apartment. She shouted something after him, but her words were drowned out by the pulse of blood in his ears and the pounding of his feet on the pavement.

He took the steps in the narrow stairwell to his apartment two at a time, and when inside, tore in through his belongings. First the closet and then the end table, seeking out what he'd hoped to never have to use again. He found the calling card first, purchased _just in case_ and still unused, and then found the small piece of torn paper with its faded inked digits and fraying edges. August dialed, his head wound up in the thoughts of why he was being called back, of what could have happened to warrant being sought out and so desperately so. Had something happened with the curse? Emma? His father? Tears pricked his eyes.

He'd been foolish to run away. It was just like Pinocchio to live up to his name, shirking duty instead for debauchery, forgetting the rest of the world and its troubles.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other line belonged to Blue and he panicked, remaining silent.

"…August?"

A cough left his throat, words unsteady. "What happened?"

"You need to come home," she replied, giving nothing away.

"Just—just tell me," he demanded of her. "Is it my father? Has someone found out—does Regina know I made it out? Is she—"

"You have to do something for me."

"What—" But nothing prepared him for what was coming.

"Emma… she's had a baby."

Where before he'd been keenly aware of his heart pumping, his chest expanding and contracting with each breath, even the rain drops falling outside his window, August heard nothing now. Not a damn thing.

He'd sent her to prison and she'd been seventeen and pregnant. Had Neal known? Had he known and still given her up?

August leaned forward where he sat on the edge of the bed, making himself as small as possible. This was his fault. Like so many things, it was his fault.

"August? August… are you there? Pinocchio?"

Just how profoundly he'd fucked up began to set in.

"August—it'll be alright," Blue made an attempt at comforting him, but unlike when he was a child, her calming voice and carefully chosen words no longer held as much weight as they once had before he was jaded and embittered to the harsh realities of this world. "It will be alright, but you have to help."

He hadn't changed at all and maybe that's what she was counting on; he still wasn't good at saying no.

—

If he'd had a million years, August never would have been prepared for what Blue asked of him. It was simple really: he was to be a go-between for Blue, a liaison between the outside world and Storybrooke that went where she couldn't and ensured that the newborn ended up right where he belonged. A few hours, that was all it would take, but August was certain he would end up paying for the stress of it all instead with years off his life.

The social worker had barely so much as given a cursory glance to his forged credentials and exchanged a few words before she traded him an infant of barely a few weeks old. August looked for something in the woman's eyes, something that told him she was under a spell of magic or curse or anything to explain just how the Blue Fairy had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, but he saw nothing there, nothing save for the desolate apathy and indifference that was a plague around the world.

Just like that, August Wayne Booth was left in the middle of arrivals at Logan International Airport with a newborn and what few belongings the child called his own.

The baby wailed from beneath the blanket that cloaked the bulky carrier August held within the circle of his arms, and it was that alone that shook him awake enough to return to his senses. Around him, the rest of the world moved on, eyes of strangers lingering on him as they passed, no doubt in curiosity at the sight of the bewildered guardian with the child growing more insistent and irritated as each second passed. August felt his skin heat up at the scrutiny and made haste from the airport to the parking garage.

By time he found the rental car once again, what had once been intermittent cries evolved into full-bodied sobs, so piercing they tugged at his heart strings. It reminded him of that forest so long ago, Emma in his arms as he tried to navigate the darkness. He'd been sure then that perhaps this world was abandoned, no one to be found but the animals he'd heard at night, and that somehow he'd be left to provide for the child on his own. It had terrified him even more than her cries had as he had continued to walk aimlessly, knowing full well a forest provided no nourishment a baby needed. He would watch her starve.

But time had passed, he had grown, and eighteen years ago he had found that roadside eatery that had been their salvation. He was no longer a child, and he could, for the time being, at least calm this newborn's cries.

August fit the carrier into the locking mechanism of the car seat then sifted through the small carryon the child had come with. He was careful, mindful of the boy's birth certificate and other records that tied him to this world, and at the bottom of the bag he found what he sought, a few pre-made bottles of formula. It wouldn't be warm, not like he knew children tended to prefer, but it would be sustenance and something for the baby to suckle at to keep his calm. August shook and then uncapped the bottle, peeling back the factory-seal to replace it with one of the screw-top nipples, and then from the other side of the car, climbed into the backseat towards the baby.

"Don't cry," he said, echoing his words from nearly two decades ago as he inched closer to the boy. August drew back the blanket with one hand.

He was beautiful. God damn beautiful, even as he cried out of frustration, a child denied the love of a mother just as Emma had been, and August's heart ached at the innate loneliness the boy must have felt without even knowing it.

August was as careful as he could be in easing the boy's pain, first releasing the clasps that secured the baby to the seat, then lifting the infant and the blanket into his arms. He cradled him there, the shockingly powerful limbs thrusting and kicking in every which way while a toothless mouth gaped with each shattering cry. As a consolation, August offered him the formula, and though it wasn't quite the magic trick he'd been hoping for, the baby took to suckling it, calming eventually in time.

And August, he was left marveling.

"I'm sorry," he apologized aloud to the baby, his words tentative and hushed. "There should've been another way and… I made a mistake. You're going to have to pay for it and because of that—I—I'm sorry."

The baby watched him from where he laid as he continued to eat, not even making so much as a gurgle that August could convince himself to believe was the newborn's acceptance of his apology. August hung his head and let out his own self-pitying sigh.

That boy was so much of Emma, August didn't see an ounce of his father in him. He was too fair skinned to take after Neal, his features too soft. Even the wrinkle of his nose or the way he kept a fist close to his face as he ate was reminiscent of Emma and how she slept, hand tucked under her cheek.

A snug cloth hat covered his head and August ran his fingers along the sewn edge, for a second taking the time to imagine what he'd find underneath. A thick head of dark hair, perhaps the one thing he'd gotten from his father? Light, nearly invisible filaments of downy hair like his mother? Nothing at all? Somewhere in between?

He pushed the hat up slowly and was greeted by the reddest shock of hair he'd ever seen on a newborn. Finally and without warning, August wept.

His body curled around the child, that great care he'd previously taken suddenly gone and none of his concern, only seeking to make himself as close to the baby in his arms as humanly possible. Tears, the kind that came so easily, so without warning, and in such number—the likes of which he didn't think he'd ever shed, not even as a child—streaked down his cheeks, passing from his skin to that of his son's, wetting the infant's hair. August thought he'd known pain and desperation, known the misery that came with one's actions—whether it was climbing into a wardrobe or leaving an orphanage or abandoning Emma for a _second_ time—but all of it, it was nothing compared to what he felt right then.

August kissed the baby's scalp as he cried, daring for contact while holding the bottle still in place, albeit somewhat haphazardly. He breathed him in, that sweet scent that went beyond diapers and detergent, the kind of vivid memory drummed up in his olfactory senses that reminded him of the only other time he'd held a baby in his life. It was a calming balm to him, despite the imagery he saw behind closed eyelids of a forest and a different newborn, and August let himself be consumed in it, inside and out, spreading like a warmth in his chest to the rest of his limbs.

How hadn't he seen it before? How had he looked at this child and looked for Neal in the baby's face? How hadn't he see something of himself in him until now?

He shifted, the boy mostly supported across his lap and cradled in the crook of his arm, that same hand now also supporting the bottle so that his other could go free. Fingers brushed across the baby's eyebrows, thin and nearly translucent, and then down the slope of his nose, everything about him in tiny and miniature in the kind of way that was more obvious and striking now that he was twenty-five instead of seven.

Did Emma even hold him? he wondered. Or had she not wanted to see him? Did all of this—her having his child—somehow negate the magic at work? Did she remember him now? Or was she left to believe the obvious, that the other man had been responsible for it? Had she even wanted to have the baby or had she been left with no other choice? If he hadn't listened to Blue, if he'd stood by Emma with the courage he'd always longed for, would they have kept it? August feared the answer to that question because no matter the choice, there was no ideal end to be had. He just wished she hadn't had to make that decision on her own.

The baby's eyelids grew heavy, drooping lower with each blink as he ate, only barely just staving off sleep for another few seconds, and in that moment, August was certain if he could feel this way forever, he would never find a reason move.

—

Going to Storybrooke as promised… that hadn't been an easy choice. In fact, August had sat with the car idling at the town line for over an hour as the afternoon gave way to dusk, certain that Storybrooke would be his undoing. Mostly, he was right.

He followed the directions from memory that Blue had given him, staying away from the town center and heading along the outskirts to find the convent. The streets were empty though he passed a few out for an evening stroll, even a man walking a dalmatian, slowing as he looked for familiar faces where there were none to be had. He recognized no one and part of him thought that just maybe he was in the _wrong_ place, but the directions were right, each street and landmark just where it should be.

The large residence, somehow exactly as he pictured it, waited for him as he pulled up, turning the ignition off. The dread that had pooled in his stomach hours ago prevented him from getting out, even under the cloak of darkness that now bathed the town. August leaned forward and set his forehead against the top of the steering wheel, fingers still gripped tightly around it. He had to go in, but just the same, he knew he couldn't. He _couldn't_. It didn't matter if his son had been blissfully asleep for the last few hours, lulled into a happier state by a full stomach and the soft vibrations of the car around him, and thus not an obvious reminder of what he was to be giving up, August couldn't forget.

He sighed deep, eyes shut, and then a tap at his car window jerked him awake. Blue—at a height befitting a human instead of a fairy and in a rather drab wardrobe—stood, clutching her shawl tight as she leaned down to look at him through the glass. Her face wore concern, and at the same time, relief.

"August," she said, voice muffled.

He pulled the door release and unfastened his seatbelt, and with unsure hesitance, stepped out. Immediately, she had him wrapped up in her arms, and he returned the gesture without second guessing. God it felt good to touch someone else like that, someone else who knew who he really was, of which there'd been none in this life.

"You've grown up," Blue said softly as she pulled back, her tight squeeze around him gone slack as she instead cupped his cheek while looking up to him.

An aborted laugh left his throat, head shaking slightly as he glanced down and away before looking back to her. "Not much…. And not well."

Her eyes squinted slightly from the smile that grew over her lips, cheekbones rising to accommodate. "You're here, and that says enough for me."

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, his words eighteen years too late.

She seemed to know what he was apologizing for and shook her head in a rejection of his apology, not because she didn't accept it, but because it wasn't necessary. "Wasn't your fault, August. You were a boy."

Maybe he just needed her to hear it though, either way. "I'm still sorry. We wouldn't be in this mess if—"

"Please," she interrupted, hand brushing gently over the center of his chest and it effectively silenced August. "We should go inside, it isn't safe to talk out here."

"Is it any safer in there?" He questioned, a glimpse taken of the building and the others that shared the space with her.

Blue sighed. "It's something. But—the baby—is he… did it all work out like I said it would?"

August moved a few steps towards the rear, opening the backdoor. He leaned in and over the child, first going for his carryall of belongings and slinging it over his shoulder, then finally disengaging the car seat from where it had been secured. He nudged the car door shut with his hip, his arms full.

"Let me," Blue said, offering an open set of arms for whatever he would offer her, but August stepped away with something of an acutely, but also suddenly, cultivated protective instinct, his grip tightening around the plastic carrier.

"Just show me the way," he said tightly, barely moving his mouth out of fear it would wreck the carefully coiled control he had. The wrinkle in her brow warned him of her early skepticism, but she did as asked, and led them into the home and then into an upper, more isolated room.

August set the baby's things down and then finally the baby himself, atop the lone bed in the room. He sat beside him, his body sagging down with the bed, defeated. Blue gave him the space he so desired, but only for a moment before she, too, came over, only this time her attention wasn't on him, it was on the sleeping infant. She said nothing.

"He's mine," he stated, simple and to the point, but then lifted an eyebrow and his head as he looked to her. "But I think you knew that."

Though she didn't move from where she stood, she looked as though she were withdrawn immediately, her gaze shifting from son to father. "How would I have known that?"

"I don't know," he raised his hands, palms open to the world as he gesticulated around him. "How have you ever done or known anything? Magic?"

"You know there's no magic here, August," and that was the tone he knew from her when he was younger, the same voice he'd heard from teachers through his childhood. Correcting him, always correcting him.

"_Bullshit_," he snapped, and from the widening of her eyes, his word had its intended impact. He was no longer a little boy to her. "You gave me that potion for Emma," August spoke, ticking off his list bullet by bullet. "You somehow convinced someone to adopt a child into a place that doesn't even _exist_ to the outside world. And years ago—how did you find me? How did you even know I was here?"

Blue looked away.

"Don't lie to me. You've no right, not when you told _me_ not to. I'm not a child anymore, not someone you can manipulate, not someone you can make do all the things you can't, be how you want me to be. This world comes with _choice_." There was anger in him, only just barely withheld.

"Easy, Pinocchio," she warned more to a wounded animal than a grown man.

"That's _not_ my name," he bit out. "It hasn't been in a long time."

"August. August, then," Blue amended, conceding.

He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, applying pressure to stop the tears from coming, the tears he so desperately didn't want to fall again as they had hours earlier in the backseat of the car with his child in his arms. A child with hair so red it reminded him of his own from his youth, hair that had faded and darkened as he aged, and that he suspected, would do just the same for his son as he grew up. No matter how dedicated his efforts, however, the tears came to his eyes, spilling from the corners faster than he could wipe them away. How he still could have tears at all, he didn't know.

Blue's voice, small and gentle, spoke up. "I was trying to protect you from this hurt."

Sometimes you must lie to protect the ones you love. August had believed those words then from his father, a man that had done nothing but loved and cared for him, and though he may have once believed it from Blue as well… he didn't believe it tonight.

"By never letting me know I had a son? Is that what you expected to happen—that I just wouldn't figure it out? That I'd bring him here and just—" his head swept back and forth rapidly, "—just give him to you without a word?"

Blue came to sit beside him, a hand to his knee as she turned in his direction. "He _has_ to be here, August. I wish I could tell you how I know it, but I do. He's going to bring her here when the time comes and the two of you—you'll help her believe."

"She doesn't even _remember_ me!" His volume rose, mood growing gradually untethered. "I'll be no one to him, just a stranger for the rest of his life because of what I did. Do you even understand what you're asking of me?"

"I do," she solemnly answered.

"No. No you fucking don't—because if you did, you'd never ask."

Blue winced at his tone and choice of language.

"Just let me…" he sucked in a breath of air deep, praying for the strength he needed as he lifted his eyes from the floor to her, daring to bare the tears and vulnerability there. "Let me take him. Let me make up for what I did wrong with Emma. I'm not a kid anymore, I can do it, I can—I can—I can be a father. Please. Just let me have that chance again. I'll do it right."

"Oh August," she whispered, repeating her gesture from outside as she touched a palm to his cheek, only this time she drew his head to her shoulder in the act of comfort. "You could have taken the boy and gone anywhere, but you came here tonight."

She was right on that account, of course. He'd even thought of running off with the baby—_his son_—and making a go at the parenting gig, but he'd been scared. Terrified, even. But that self awareness didn't make it any easier for him to let go what he'd only just found, and so his anger with her, the world, every person who had once had a hand in making that fucking curse, and yes, himself, poured out of him, channeled into the only other adult in the room.

"It's not easy raising a child…"

August resisted the urge to yell back at her while she talked, accuse her of knowing nothing about being a parent, but he held his tongue as she went on.

"Emma gave him up because she knew she couldn't do it, and I think you know you're not in a place to either. Where would you stay? What would you do for work? Who would care for him when you couldn't be there?"

Just as he'd done to Neal, the Blue Fairy rebuffed his hopes with logic, even if something in August's heart told him there was no place for logic when it came to matters like this. When it came to love.

August looked away from her and back to the child that still slumbered, unaware. Jesus Christ. He—Pinocchio, August Wayne Booth, whoever he felt he was today—loved that kid. After all that time, he finally found something in this world that he loved without question or reluctance.

"You'll meet again," she whispered.

He loved that kid, but damn if he didn't hate Blue.

"Please," he tried again. "Please."

"August…"

"I just," he turned away from her more completely, body angled towards his son rather than her, and let a hand slip into the carrier as his palm engulfed the roundness of his son's head. His thumb brushed over the wisps of red hair closest to his forehead and then August moved in, his cheek grazing his son's before lips pressed to the infant's forehead. He lingered, unwilling to move right away, but finally pulled back, his eyes never leaving the boy. "I don't want him to be alone. I don't want him to be alone like I was my entire life."

"And he won't be," Blue said, rising to stand before him.

August tilted his had back to look up, his watery, reddened eyes making contact with hers. "Is this my family's curse?"

She was bewildered at the suggestion. "Curse?"

"To never raise their children. My grandparents didn't—and then my father—and now me. Will my son's children have to suffer the same way? Is it Emma's curse as well?" In this world, that sort of coincidence was often labeled as learned behavior, one generation passing on to the next its shortcomings and failures. Of course, in this world the reasons for not raising one's children didn't include _because they were turned into puppets_, or _because a magical curse was coming_. But they did include twenty-five year old fathers who were afraid of responsibility.

"Both of your families have shared a great deal of heartache, but that doesn't mean there's a curse to blame. Just life, Pinocchio."

"Please," he begged, and this time reached out to her, fingers tangling and tugging at the fabric of her sweater. "I'll be good."

Blue took him in her arms again, this time his face burying itself around her middle due to her standing and him sitting. She leaned forward and kissed the crown of his head.

"I'll be good," he repeated as the tears returned to him, vision blurry for what little he did see. "Let me be brave enough to try."

"You'll get that chance, it just isn't now."

August heard her own voice tighten from its usual stoic calm, quivering as she spoke, and that loss of her constant stalwartness was enough to shake him further, his chest heaving with sobs. For all the annoyance he'd found at being treated by her, at times, like he was still a child, August—himself—felt as though he was a little boy now, nothing of the man remaining. He was, for the first time in a long time, Pinocchio.

"_I_ don't want to be alone!" He shouted as he pulled away, hands covering his face, fingers given up the futile game of wiping away his tears. The truth had been disguised before, but now it was out in the open. He didn't want his son to be alone, but more than that, _August_ didn't want to be on his own either, just as he'd always been since he'd left the Enchanted Forest in a wardrobe. His body quaked with his shame, gasping breaths taken the more exhausted his body grew from the emotional turmoil. In a way, it was every ounce of fear and sadness he'd hid away for years now, all bottlenecking inside of him as it fought to come out.

"Do you know what they think of Pinocchio in this world?" He asked, his words stuttered and interrupted by the need for gulps of air as his body was fighting to maintain a proper oxygen flow. "They think he's a liar and a coward, that you can't trust him. You're making me more like him than I ever really was."

Blue touched his shoulder but August jerked away, going so far as to stand up and cross the room, his back given to her as he attempted to preserve what little of his dignity was left.

"Those are just stories here. They're not anything more."

"But I _am_ a coward," he countered, and no matter what she—or anyone—could ever say, August would always believe it. A coward through life, that's what he was and what he was built to be.

From behind him, he could hear the already familiar sound of the baby stirring—the rustling of cloth, even a frustrated but short cry as he returned to the waking world—and it was that which drew August back towards Blue and his son. It was magnetic, almost, like they were two oppositely charged particles forced to be together no matter how much they may have resisted.

The baby fussed in his arms and August took to what came natural, kissing his face, holding him close, stroking his scalp and cheek as he paced the room, hoping the gentle rhythm would be enough of a deterrent to keep the boy from crying out so soon. Just as he offered the boy a sliver of peace, the newborn returned it, calming the stormy seas inside of August to a breezeless, tranquil surface. The two of them together, they existed in a kind of harmony.

"I didn't think I even could… you know, have children," he said, his cheeks reddening at the thought of broaching such a topic.

"Why would you think that?"

"I don't know." A pause of consideration. "Because I'm not _real_. Thought that being a father was something that didn't come with the magic that made me alive. I think I'd even accepted it, come to understand that the best in way of a family that I could ever hope for was seeing my father again. But this…" he sighed with contentment despite the tears that still stained his cheeks and even waited in the corners of his eyes, "he's real and there aren't any rules or conditions on that like there were for me. He'll always be real. Nothing can take that away."

For a second, August allowed himself to shut his eyes, choosing to shut out the rest of the world save for who he held in his arms. He could feel the baby squirm only slightly, hear every tired, struggling sound that his son made, seemingly satisfied for the time being at just being held to another person. Where this feeling came from—a feeling of never wanting to let go, of never wanting to let his child be out of his sight—August didn't know. It was instinct, something deeply human and not wooden, and fighting instinct… it was not something easily done.

"Do you know—have you heard anything—" he stopped, swallowing over a painfully dry throat as he tried to gather his words. "Emma… is she alright?"

"She's as good as anyone can be after something like this. Giving her child up… it's going to help her turn her life around. You did the right thing."

It was a hollow comfort, one he wasn't sure if he believed was the only choice now that the repercussions had been met. But there was no rewinding time, no turning back the clock, and so he chose to believe Blue's words because, like so many times before, he had to in order to get by.

As he continued to rock the child as he walked, August stopped as he approached a desk on the far wall of the room. Despite the orderly state of the rest of the residence—or what little of it he'd seen—and the room, the desk itself was in disarray, papers strewn about the surface in some type of order that didn't make sense to him as a stranger, but that he was sure Blue understood herself. Fingertips ran across the hand-inked scrawl of the top most, and only half-finished page of scrap, and though the handwriting was rushed and messy, he could make out enough to pique his attention. August canted his head back towards Blue.

"What is this?"

It was an opening she'd seemingly been waiting for and she neared him, overlooking the pages. "All of our stories from back home. I'm going to make a book for your son, make sure he gets it when he'll need it."

"You always said it was too much of a burden for me to have, and now you're willing to put this on him?"

"If there was another way… And besides," she touched his elbow, "his father will be there to help him. He won't be alone."

August's vision dropped back down to that of his son. "Are you sure he'll be alright here?"

Because he only had eyes for the boy, he missed the uncertainty that Blue, if only for a fraction of a second, shone in her eyes. "He will be."

August nodded slowly and steadily. He dipped his head down, kissing the infant's forehead, breathing in that intoxicating scent that belonged to him, committing it to the depths of his memory no one would ever be able to touch. "Be a good boy," he whispered. "I'll see you soon."

Into Blue's awaiting arms, he regretfully passed over his son, and he couldn't shake the innate emptiness he felt with his arms no longer weighted down by the eight or nine pounds that the baby made. He felt those tears returning and so he finally tore his eyes away ,and making haste towards the room's door. He stopped, his hand on the knob.

"Don't," and his words were a stern warning, "try contacting me again, do you understand?"

"August—"

"Just don't. No phone calls… no god damn birds. Just don't. Not after everything else that's happened in the last year."

"What are you going to do?"

His shoulders tensed at the question and he leaned forward just slightly, his forehead coming in contact with the cool, lacquered wood of the door. "I don't know. Spend the next ten years thinking about what I've done and what I've lost because of it."

The floor creaked as she took a step closer but he compensated, instead opening the door and moving so he was halfway out.

"Don't do anything you'll regret," she warned, the last words she said to him.

August said nothing as he left, the regrets he had were already too many to count.


End file.
